Pauline Trigère

Pauline Trigère, American fashion designer

Pauline Trigère (1908-2002) was a significant New York fashion designer who opened her own business in 1942 (Trigère, Inc.) and continued producing her clothing line for five decades. In November or December 1973, Trigère visited Mount Mary College and spent time with fashion design students. She generously shared her insight on the fashion industry, offered a professional appraisal of student work, and demonstrated her scissors-in-hand technique for cutting and draping. She explained the motivation for her visit to Mount Mary in an interview with the Milwaukee Sentinel: "I'm doing it for the kids because of my belief in my fellowmen."

The photographs below show Trigère demonstrating her technique, with Mount Mary students visible in the mirror. The coat she is working on is in Mount Mary's Fashion Archive and has been digitized as part of the Digital Fashion Archive (Object ID #2003.04.01).