Adélaïde Henriette Damoville (''Madame Eloffe''; 1759–1805) was a French fashion merchant or ''

Marchandes de modes Marchande de modes was a French Guild organisation for women fashion merchants or milliners, normally meaning ornaments for headdresses, hats and dresses, within the city of Paris, active from August 1776 until 1791. It played a dominating role wit ...

''. She was a favorite

milliner Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter. Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of g ...

of Queen

Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...

. She was the niece of Mme Pompey and succeeded her in the privilege of selling the trimmings and accessories to the women of the royal court. She provided dresses for the ladies-in-waiting in the court of

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...

, and Marie Antoinette was a regular costumer. Eloffe was described as a successful rival to Rose Bertin. She was known to advertise her business to the queen by having a portrait of her in the window of her shop. Her accounts books testify that it was common for noblewomen to order remakes of dresses rather than to order completely new ones, but that the remakes were often more expensive than new ones. The queen often ordered remakes and redecorations of old dresses from her. In 1785, the queen owed Eloffe a sum of 25.000 livres, in comparison to the 90.000 livres she owed Rose Bertin. After the outbreak of the

French revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, Eloffe no longer sent her bills monthly to her clients, but charged them directly for each item. Madame Eloffe was one of the four top fashion merchants alongside

Rose Bertin Marie-Jeanne Rose Bertin (2 July 1747, Abbeville, Picardy, France – 22 September 1813, Épinay-sur-Seine) was a French milliner ('' Marchande de modes''), known as the dressmaker to Queen Marie Antoinette. She was the first celebrated French ...

Le Sieur Beaulard Jean Joseph Beaulard, known as ''Le Sieur Beaulard'' (''d. after'' 1775), was a French fashion merchant and fashion designer. He was one of the four top fashion merchants alongside Rose Bertin, Madame Eloffe and Mademoiselle Alexandre during the ...

and

Mademoiselle Alexandre Mademoiselle Alexandre (d. ''after'' 1779), was a French fashion merchant (''Marchandes de modes''). Mademoiselle Alexandre came from a family of dressmakers. In 1740, she opened a fashion shop at the Rue de la Monnaie in Paris. She foremost sold ...

during the reign of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

. Her account books, unlike those of

, have been preserved and are considered to be valuable historical sources, particularly in regard to the wardrobe of Marie Antoinette. Her business with Marie Antoinette was published in the work by Gustave-Armand-Henry, Comte de Reiset, ''Modes et usages au temps de Marie Antoinette: Livre-journal de Madame Eloffe, 2. vols.'' (Paris, 1885).

References

{{reflist * Daniel Roche,
The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Régime
' * Caroline Weber,
Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution
' * Clare Haru Crowston,
Fabricating Women: The Seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675–1791
' * Carolyn Sargentson, ''Merchants and luxury markets: the marchands merciers of eighteenth-century Paris'', Victoria and Albert Museum, 1996 French fashion designers French milliners 18th-century French businesswomen Household of Marie Antoinette 1759 births 1805 deaths French women fashion designers