Pauline Trigère

Franco-American couturière whose award-winning styles reached their height of popularity in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. Recognized early in her career as an innovator of cut and construction, Trigère brought to women of all ages all over the world such novelties as the jumpsuit, the sleeveless coat, the reversible cape and the embroidered sheer bodice. She reinvented ready-to-wear fashion, matching form to function with bold prints and architectural silhouettes to create a distinctly modern female aesthetic. Trigère’s loyal clients included Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Kay Wiebrecht, and Evelyn Lauder. Her fashions were also worn by Lena Horne, Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, and Wallis Simpson. Trigère also designed many of Patricia Neal's costumes for Breakfast at Tiffany's, additional dresses were designed by Edith Head.

After graduating from Collège Victor Hugo in Issy-les-Moulineaux at age fifteen, Trigère apprenticed as a trainee cutter at Martial et Armand in the Place Vendôme, Paris. She arrived in Manhattan, New York on 24 December 1936 with her husband, Lazar Radley, and two young children. With the aid of her brother Robert (she and her husband divorced shortly prior), Trigère launched her first collection of eleven dresses in January 1942.

Trigère won the first of her three Coty Awards in 1949, by which point she had expanded from custom dresses, suits and coats into women's read-to-wear. She also designed scarves, jewelry and men's ties, and developed a perfume line called Trigère. By 1958, annual sales at Trigère, Inc. had reached over $2 million; in the mid-1980s, they exceeded $6 million.

Like Chanel and Lanvin, Trigère did not sketch her designs; she cut and draped from bolts of fabric directly on models or mannequins. Although she was considered "a designer of classy, frill-less ready-to-wear," Trigère's work was inventive in many ways.