SLEEPING BEAUTY: Historic Paris couture house Maggy Rouff is set for a revival.

Lesser known than her contemporaries Gabrielle Chanel, Jeanne Lanvin, Madeleine Vionnet and Elsa Schiaparelli, Maggy Rouff’s designs were once worn by the likes of Grace Kelly and Maria Callas, as well as European aristocracy and royalty. The house was founded in 1929 and went dormant in the early 1980s, and while its designs once graced the society pages and fashion magazines, it is by and large absent from fashion’s history books.

Behind the relaunch is Luxembourg-based holding company Luvanis SA, which has successfully brought brands including Moynat and Poiret back to life.

The project is being teased with the issue of a limited-edition sweatshirt with the slogan “She Is Back” exclusively on the brand’s new website starting March 17, priced at 390 euros, ahead of a full ready-to-wear pre-collection reveal this June.

Maggy Rouff was founded in Paris by Vienna-born designer Maggy Anna de Wagner, whose parents managed another Paris couture house, Drecoll, a branch of the Viennese house of the same name. She began her career alongside her parents before opening her own house at 136 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and was renowned for her approach inspired by sportswear, championing freedom of movement in tandem with femininity. In a 1929 report, WWD wrote, “She sought to strip modernism of the evils of exaggeration and to imbue distinction with youthful vitality, to evolve gowns neither inconsequential nor theatrical, but serving a definite purpose in the lives of modern women.”

According to her 1971 obituary in the WWD archives, “She was one of the first designers to popularize purple as a high fashion color. Her other big fashion innovation was the introduction of the big, full-skirted ballgown at a time when everyone else was doing slinky dresses.”

Before he launched his own fashion house, a certain Christian Dior reportedly sold sketches to the house of Maggy Rouff. They would later be stablemates under textile empire Boussac Saint-Frères, which was bought out of bankruptcy in 1984 by Bernard Arnault, then a builder and real-estate developer, before the creation of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton in 1987. Arnault subsequently focused his resources on Dior, and Maggy Rouff has lain dormant since.

In 2004, Maggy Rouff designs featured in the “Fashioning the Modern Woman: The Art of the Couturière 1919-1939” exhibition at the Museum at FIT, and in 2024, they were part of the “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

De Wagner was also a writer and lecturer, publishing works devoted to taste and elegance, including the 1942 work “The Philosophy of Elegance,” in which she wrote: “Style is like love: it either strikes you instantly or it matures slowly.”

In the 1930s, Paris counted more than 80 couture houses, only a handful of which survived through the years. De Wagner designed for the house until 1949, when her daughter Françoise de Dancourt took over. The house shifted from couture to ready-to-wear in the early ‘60s.

Maggy Rouff’s creative revival is in the hands of Éric Tibusch, a long-term collaborator and close creative associate of Jean Paul Gaultier, who founded his own label in 2006. Tibusch is also known for his work for stage and screen, including creating costumes for the characters Jake and Neytiri in James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

“Maggy Rouff is not a house defined by nostalgia,” Tibusch stated. “It is a house of construction, intelligence in clothing and freedom. My role is to extend that spirit and bring it into the present.”

As well as apparel, the relaunch strategy includes fragrance, which was historically an important category for the house, with its first fragrance, Etincelle, launching in 1938. Two fragrances by Sébastien Cresp, the son of renowned perfumer Olivier Cresp, will mark the relaunch this month. Named Extase and Enigme, they feature a 100-ml bottle inspired by the brand’s archives, and will be available exclusively on the brand’s website for three months, priced at 250 euros, before rolling out to broader distribution. Accessories and jewelry will also be part of the offer further down the line.

Luvanis SA is the brainchild of French entrepreneur Arnaud de Lummen, a brand reviver who reintroduced Vionnet’s ready-to-wear in 2006 before selling the label to Matteo Marzotto and Gianni Castiglioni three years later. Likewise, he revived the prestigious 19th-century trunk-maker Moynat and sold it to Groupe Arnault in 2010. More recent projects include the reawakening of Rose Bertin, Marie Antoinette’s favorite dressmaker, which is ongoing.

— Archival research courtesy of the Fairchild Archives