Rose Bertin, the 18th century Coco Chanel

Marie-Jeanne Bertin was born on 02 July 1747 in Abbeville, Marie Marguerite Méquignon, a sick guard, and Nicolas Bertin, a cavalier of the marshal's family.
His education, though rudimentary, enabled him to read, write and count.

But in a city that wanted to be home to textiles and draperies, Marie-Jeanne, who was better suited to manual work, especially in the field of couture, went to apprenticeship with one of her aunts, then moved to Paris with Mademoiselle Pagelle in A fashion house "Le Trait Galant" at the age of 16 years. She became a milliner.
She then abandons her first name to adopt that of Rose, more trendy, more graceful.

In 1770, at the age of 23, she created her own store "Le Grand Mogol", not far from the Royal Palace faubourg Saint Honoré and her reputation as a designer, her creative talents having approached the high aristocracy at two princely weddings (The two daughters of the Earl of Charolais and Marguerite de Rancurel de la Saune) made his shop known to a genuine rise with a clientele that became essentially aristocratic. Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry are among her faithful clients.
Her vision of the "low people" of haute couture, of which she became one of the precursors feminine upsets the habits and launches the country fashion, the dresses of muslin and especially the dresses of pregnancies still remained in an untapped area, haute couture Being an exclusively male domain at that time.

May 11, 1774, Rose was presented by his client Louise Marie Adelaide de Bourbon, Duchesse de Chartres at the new Queen Marie Antoinette makes her his milliner and to finish his "Minister of fashion". She became so close to Marie-Antoinette that, confiding her dismay that she could not have a child, Rose advised her a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de Monflières, a small hamlet dependent on the village of Bellancourt near Abbeville Naturally. To mark her passage and to thank the Virgin of Monflières following the birth of Marie-Thérèse Charlotte of France, her daughter Marie Antoinette donated a magnificent dress of golden cloth and sewn with gold thread made by Rose And today still kept preciously in the town of Bellancourt and exhibited once a year during the days of heritage in the chapel of Notre-Dame de Monflières.

The Revolution breaks out.
Marie-Antoinette and Rose follow parallel paths, the toilets of the Queen are modified and become more modest but always come from the store "Le Grand Mogol". Their roads will definitely separate one fine day of October 1793.

During the Terror, Rose burned all her documents relating to the frequentation of the upper middle class of her shop and went into exile in England. She returned timidly to France in 1794 and then definitively in 1795 in her residence of Epinay sur Seine acquired in 1782, the "pavilion Béatus" ¹.
It never again knew the same success as before, its articles become symbols of the abuses of the monarchy are sullied by the 1st Empire.

She died at Epinay sur Seine on September 21, 1813 in total oblivion.

¹: Rose Bertin acquired her property located on Avenue de la République in Epinay Sur Seine in 1782, which she named the Béatus pavilion in connection with the place called "Les Béatus", an ancient name in Epinay. This pavilion was inscribed on the inventory of historic monuments in 1933.