Noelle Salazar's The Roaring Days of Zora Lily follows a fictional aspiring fashion designer living in Seattle in the 1920s. But who were the real fashion designers of the day? In Salazar's novel, Zora wants to have a career like Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin. While most American readers have likely heard of the Chanel brand and its eponymous founder, fewer may be aware of her contemporary Lanvin. Nevertheless, Lanvin's fashion house is considered one of the most successful and innovative of her era, and she remains internationally known as a designer and perfumer, perhaps most notably for her iconic fragrance Arpège.

Like Salazar's Zora, Lanvin came from modest beginnings and worked hard to achieve her dreams. Born to a large family in Paris in 1967, she started her first job at the age of 13, delivering for a hat shop and eventually completing a milliner's apprenticeship there. She also worked as a dressmaker's assistant in her teen years. Lanvin opened a small design ...