Empress Josephine
Empress Josephine is one of history’s great style icons, whose elegance, charm, and easy aristocratic grace are legendary. Six years older than Napoleon, Josephine conveyed both maternal warmth and sensual sophistication, and sparked Napoleon’s only grand passion. Kind and generous, she set a standard of taste that women ever since have aimed to emulate. She favored simplicity in dress, but in support of Napoleon’s imperial designs, she evolved a style that promoted French luxury industry and trade. The result was an irresistible combination of Greek classical purity and Imperial sumptuousness.
Josephine had a passion for Kashmir shawls, which became available in France following Napoleon’s 1798-99 campaign in Egypt. French officers returned laden with shawls as gifts, and the fashion soon spread like wildfire. Josephine owned several hundred shawls, some of which had cost as much as 12,000 francs, an exorbitant price at the time. It is said that her love for cashmere shawls was next to her love of flowers, and they became her signature fashion statement, a perfect complement to her refined and legendary elegance.
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