Her story is the classic rags-to-riches one of the American immigrant.
Lilly Dache’s Early Career
Born in Gironde, France in 1898, Dache was apprenticed to the leading French milliners, Caroline Reboux and Suzanne Talbot at 15. According to her Glamour Book, Dache was “just eighteen when I stood (for the first time) at the corner of 34th Street and Broadway" and "breathed in the perfume of exhaust fumes . . . sweeter to me than the headiest essences of the flower fields of France."
Before she arrived in New York City, Dache lived with her uncle in Atlantic City. Soon after she went to New York with just $13.00 in her pocket she saw a sign saying: “Milliner Wanted.” The ever-enterprising Dache walked in and got the job. Her first hat, a turban, composed of four different shades of blue, was made from scraps that she found in the shop.
Lilly Dache Achieves Success
Dache opened her first shop at 25. Her outrageous hats soon became noticed. She was best known for her turbans, which she personally draped on her customer’s heads.
Hats were often more important than dresses in the days of the Depression because they were cheaper. During the '40s fabric was scarce so hats remained popular.
Dache Designs for Movie Stars
Dache became so successful that she designed hats for Hollywood films and achieved popularity with movie-stars. Her clients included Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn and Loretta Young. One of her most famous hats was a “Hands-Across-The-Sea” hat, which she designed for the actress Beatrice Lillie. This had two hands clasped on the front.
She once said that when she was crafting the hat she asked the customer where she planned to wear it and what dress she was going to wear with it. The movie-stars liked this kind of personal attention.
When Dache retired in 1968, her loyal customer, Loretta Young, bought her last 30 hats.
Lilly Dache’s Personal Life
Dache married Jean Despres, an executive at Coty, Inc., the fragrance and cosmetics company, in 1931. They had a very happy marriage and a daughter, Suzanne, who also became a milliner.
Lilly Dache Extends Her Design Business
Dache’s hats included colored snoods and flower shapes as well as turbans. As hats decreased in popularity, Dache extended her business into dresses, gloves, lingerie and loungewear. She also went into fragrances. These were Drifting and Dashing.
She eventually had her own building, the Lilly Dache Building, built in 1937. Here brunettes entered a silver fitting-room while blondes tried on their outfits in a golden fitting-room. Ms. Dache announced her presence by bells which she wore on her leopard-skin slippers!
She also dressed in a leopard-skin robe and conducted business in bed in the mornings! Sometimes she spoke to important people from her bubble-bath instead.
The famous designer, Halston, once designed for Lilly Dache.
Suzanne Dache Takes Over The Business
When Dache’s husband retired from Coty, she decided to join him. They spent their time at their homes in New York and Paris. Jean Despres died in 1988 at 84. Lilly Dache died in a nursing home in France in 1989.
Her hats and designs are very popular with collectors of vintage hats and clothes. If you are visiting London you can see some of Dache’s hats at Hats: An Anthology at the V & A Museum until the end of May.
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