Catherine Donovan (1826 – 16 April 1906), (also known as Mrs. C. Donovan or Mme Donovan) was an Irish-American dressmaker, best remembered for her dress shop/home on

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Str ...

in New York City in the early 20th century. Her designs have been preserved and exhibited in the collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

and the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

Biography

Donovan was born in Ireland and emigrated to the United States when she was a child. She studied fashion design in Paris and established herself in New York, where she had her own store with showroom (after 1900 on

). She sold French designs by

Charles Frederick Worth Charles Frederick Worth (13 October 1825 – 10 March 1895) was an English fashion designer who founded the House of Worth, one of the foremost fashion houses of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He is considered by many fashion historians to ...

and Emile Pingat. Her own designs were heavily influenced by contemporary French designs, which can be seen, among other things, in the historical details she favored in her clothes. She was the fashion designer who in the second half of the 19th century was often hired by New York's upper-class shoppers. The Philadelphia Museum of Art said of her: : After her death in 1906, Irish-born Catherine Donovan was described by the New York Times as "the pioneer dressmaker of the 400," for dressing New York's social elite known as the "400." She owned a building on Madison Avenue at 40th Street, where she sold imported gowns from leading Paris couturiers such as Charles Frederick Worth and Emile Pingat. At least once, her employees' baggage was seized at U.S. customs on suspicion of smuggling. It was common practice for seized goods to be auctioned publicly, and in 1893 over five hundred people attended an auction of Worth, Pingat, and other gowns seized from Donovan. Her clientele included the wealthiest New Yorkers, according to her obituary:

Mrs. Donovan did not hang out a sign to attract trade; she didn't have to. She lived for many years in a handsome brownstone house of the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and Fortieth Street. She owned the property. ...The Goelets,
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and
Vanderbilts The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthr ...
were patrons of Mrs. Donovan. The wedding gown worn by the Duchess of Marlborough was made under her supervision.

Many of her clothing creations are preserved and exhibited at the

. When she died in 1906 at almost 80 years of age at

Lakewood Township, New Jersey Lakewood Township is the most populous township in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. A rapidly growing community as of the 2020 U.S. census, the township had a total population of 135,158 representing an increase of 41,415 (+45.5 ...

, she had outlived her husband, Charles Donovan. They had no children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Donovan, Catherine 1826 births 1906 deaths Irish designers American designers Designers Businesspeople from New York City 19th-century American businesswomen 19th-century American landowners