Claude Saint-Cyr

Pseudonym of Simone Naudet (1911), a French milliner. She did her apprenticeship in the most important workshops of the 1920s and 1930s, where she learned all the secrets of high fashion millinery. In 1937 she opened her own maison in Paris, and her creations, thanks to their elegance and rigor, enjoyed immediate success. In 1949, a scandal was caused by her Oblique line, a play of asymmetric drapings invented by chance. She became the official milliner to Queen Elisabeth, working with Norman Hartnell, the queen’s tailor. The day of the coronation she was the one who solved a problem caused by a crown that was too large. When, in the 1960s, hats fell out of fashion, she retired to a small boutique. She closed in 1972, but for a while kept working as a consultant.