Jean Patou opened his couture house in 1919, on the rue Saint-Florentin, with a single innovation: he intended to dress women who moved. His principal client in the early 1920s was Suzanne Lenglen, the French tennis champion who won Wimbledon six times between 1919 and 1925. For her he designed a pleated white silk skirt above the knee, a sleeveless sweater, and a bright orange bandeau headband. Lenglen wore this on Centre Court. It was the first time a leading professional athlete had worn designer sportswear in competition. The photographs circulated globally.

The Sports Line

Patou launched a dedicated sportswear line, Le Coin des Sports, in 1925 — the first formal sport-and-leisure line within a Paris couture house. It sold bathing suits, ski outfits, golf wear, tennis whites, and riding habits. The idea that a couture house might sell specialised sporting dress was novel; every subsequent house's resort and sport lines descend from it.

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Couture will not survive if it continues to dress women for the drawing-room. — Jean Patou, 1926

Joy

Patou's 1930 fragrance Joy was launched, deliberately, during the Depression. Its composition — 10,600 jasmine flowers and 28 dozen roses per bottle — made it the most expensive perfume in the world, a distinction it retained for sixty years. Patou's argument was that luxury, at its most uncompromising, was proof against recession. He was correct; Joy became a bestseller and funded the house for decades.

Karl's Debut

Patou died in 1936 of a stroke, at 49. His house continued under his brother-in-law Raymond Barbas. In 1958 a 24-year-old Karl Lagerfeld was appointed a couture assistant at Patou; his first public collection, for Patou in 1960, was his Paris debut. The house also launched the early careers of Marc Bohan, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Christian Lacroix.

The label was purchased by Puig in 2001, primarily for the Joy fragrance, and revived in 2018 under Guillaume Henry. The couture operation, however, has not returned.