Hats by Madame Paulette

Madame Paulette was Paris’s “queen of milliners.” Born in 1900, this famed headwear designer learned her trade between the wars, and by the forties and fifties her hats crowned the heads of everyone who was anyone in Paris, and were increasingly sought by the rich and famous around the world. Film stars such as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Audrey Hepburn were some of her most ardent fans, as well as royalty, including Princess Grace of Monaco and the Duchess of Windsor. Hats by Madame Paulette will appeal to fashion experts and aficionados of fine millinery alike, providing an essential guide on the most indispensable fashion item of the mid-twentieth century; no woman would consider herself formally dressed without a hat. In addition to celebrities vying for Madame Paulette’s creations, fashion photographers clamored for her designs. Included here are photographs from Avedon, Newton, Horst, and Klein, as well as film stills of the hats she designed for Cecil Beaton that appeared in My Fair Lady and Gigi.