Madame Louise Chéruit (died 1935), often erroneously identified as Madeleine Chéruit, was among the foremost couturiers of her generation, and one of the first women to control a major French fashion house. Her salon operated in the Place Vendôme in Paris under the name Chéruit (French pronunciation: [ ʃeʁi ]) from 1906 to 1935. Chéruit is best remembered today as the subject of a number of portraits by Paul César Helleu, with whom she conducted an affair before opening her couture house and for the appearance of her name in two celebrated works of literature, Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (1910) and Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies (1930). Her name is also frequently associated with the fashion photography of Edward Steichen whose favorite model, Marion Morehouse, often wore gowns from the house of Chéruit for Vogue magazine in the 1920s. One particular Steichen image has become iconic: Morehouse in a jet-beaded black net Chéruit dress, first published in 1927.
As one of the leaders of French style, Madame Chéruit and her house of couture took fashion from the Belle Époque through the Jazz Age. In 1910, one reporter wrote glowingly, "With taste, so original, so fine, and so personal, Madame Chéruit has placed her house of fashion at the first rank, not only in Paris, but in the entire world."[6] During her career, she refined for her aristocratic clientele the creative excesses of some of her contemporaries. Her patrons favored soft, feminine, richly ornamented dresses, and, along with fellow designers Lucien Lelong and Louise Boulanger, she helped transition the couture industry from the glamour of high fashion to the reality of ready-to-wear.
She may not be a household name like Coco Chanel or Elsa Schiaparelli, but the fact is Madeleine Chéruit helped pave the way for female fashion designers, becoming one of the first women to control a major French fashion house, at the turn of the century. Chéruit got her start working as a dressmaker at Raudnitz & Cie House of Couture in the late 1880s, but her talent was so exceptional that she eventually took over the salon and its more than 100 employees in 1905, renaming it Chéruit. She helped launch the career of Paul Poiret by supporting his designs, won the praise of Vogue, and was one of the few couture houses that remained open during WWI. Though the house shuttered in 1935, Chéruit's influence in fashion design--and particularly female fashion design--can still be felt. In fact, it was Elsa Schiaparelli who famously took over Chéruit's 98-room studio and salon, forever tying the two designers together.
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