This adventurous seamstress liberated the body by inventing the bra in the early 20th century. And changed women’s lives. Story told by Virginia Giraud*.
Lovers of slightly exclusive underwear still frequent the Cadolle boutique, located on rue Cambon in Paris, since 1911. They sometimes buy corsets there to improve their shape, corsets, which the founder of this fashion house, however, accepted. Let’s consider her, this Herminie Cadolli, who goes to Paris with her son and husband in the 1860s. This corset maker with a lot of character has gold in her fingers. But his first fight won’t be in fashion.
During the siege of Paris in 1870, he participated in the Vigilance Committee of the 18th arrondissement, where he befriended its president, Louise Michel. Hermine is an anarchist, a republican and since 1871 a communist. Frequent trips to the barricades earned him a stay in prison. Despite repression and frequent clashes with the police, he remained involved for more than ten years against the People of Versailles, incarnations of the Party of Order at the dawn of the Third Republic.
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Opening his first store
In 1887, now widowed, he moved to Buenos Aires to open his first store. Argentina, in conditions of full economic growth, then became a paradise for expatriate Communards. It is there that, after making one of those beautiful corsets which fatten the breast and suffocate the waist, she takes a pair of scissors; Hermini cuts the fabric and boning between the bust and waist and adds suspenders. By doing so, it frees up the ribs and stomach, as the weight of the breast supports the shoulders. Wearing this brand new throat corset, as he calls it, it’s possible to move and breathe without squeezing your ribs or compressing your lungs.
This piece of underwear is a revolution that promotes women’s emancipation. Moreover, the designer calls his first model Le Bien-Être, a promise for the women of his time. To market it, Herminie Cadol made the opposite trip, returning from Buenos Aires and renting a stand at the Universal Exhibition of 1889, dominated by the red-painted Eiffel Tower. His innovation was only moderately successful. The corset is way ahead of its time.
Loss-candy success
He continued to improve his model and took out a patent on July 6, 1898. This time the gorge was successful. He won a bronze medal for his creation at the Universal Exhibition of 1900, and then a gold medal at the French Medical Hygiene Exhibition. Now copied Hermine Cadol does not hesitate to sue corset manufacturers who fake her models. World War I prompted women to put away their corsets forever in favor of bras that flooded the market.
Photo by Tom Munroe
The pioneer of this new underwear died in 1924. The following year, her granddaughter Marguerite continued her grandmother’s work and collaborated with rising fashion star Gabrielle Chanel to create Boyish Form, a bra that slightly compresses the breasts to give away. women this new fashionable androgynous silhouette. Since then, Kadol’s house has been passed down from mother to daughter. She continues to make innovations in underwear and corsets, thus proving that fashion is also everything that goes out of fashion.
Discover other historical figures on the podcast with Virginia Giraud At the heart of the story ,
Source: Le Figaro
