ELLEN LOUISE CURTIS DEMOREST

• Born: November 15, 1824
• Died: August 10, 1898
• Nationality:
• Profession:

Ellen Louise Demorest (née Curtis) was a US fashion arbiter. She was a successful milliner, widely credited for inventing mass-produced tissue-paper dressmaking patterns. With her husband, William Jennings Demorest, she established a company to sell the patterns, which were adaptations of the latest French fashions, and a magazine to promote them (1860). Her dressmaking patterns made French styles accessible to ordinary women, thus greatly influencing US fashion.