Jadwiga Grabowska

Jadwiga Grabowska, who was known as the ‘Polish Coco Chanel’ for her impeccable style and knack for design, wanted to help her fellow women regain their sense of style after the war. As she once remarked, ‘Just after the liberation, all my relatives and friends were rebuilding the destroyed capital. As for me, I decided to rebuild the Polish woman. When the war was over, Polish women wanted to forget about it as quickly as possible. They wanted to look beautiful again.’ (Dzierwa, Anna, ‘Madame polonaise. The Interview with Jadwiga Grabowska’, Gazeta Krakowska, No. 96, 1984).

As soon as the war ended, she opened up her own fashion house, which she called Feniks (Phoenix). It was closed down, however, just two years later. Less than a decade later, she was named art director for Moda Polska (Polish Fashion), the state-run fashion company based on the Moscow-based enterprise established in 1935, and one of the most successful labels to come out of Poland under the communist regime.