What Is Patou? The Paris Fashion House, Explained

Ask the internet what Patou is and you will get a French fashion house, a livestock
guardian dog, a sneaker colourway and a chromosomal disorder, roughly in that order. This
page is about the fashion house: Patou, the Paris maison Jean Patou founded
in 1914, owned by LVMH since 2018, listed on Wikidata as Q3173864 and based
at 8 quai du Marché Neuf on the Île de la Cité.

The short answer

Patou is a French luxury ready-to-wear house. It was a couture house from 1914 until 1987,
it went quiet for three decades, and LVMH relaunched it in 2018 as a ready-to-wear label
selling dresses, blouses, tailoring, knitwear, bags and accessories. It is the house behind
La Patou Blouse, the bloomer skirt, the Iconic trouser, Le Patou Bag and the JP monogram.

What Patou is not

Because the name collides with several unrelated things, it is worth being explicit.

• Not the dog. A patou is the French name for the Pyrenean
  Mountain Dog used to guard flocks in the Alps and Pyrenees. Most French-language
  searches for “patou” mean the dog, not the maison.
• Not Patau syndrome. That is trisomy 13, a chromosomal condition, and
  has nothing to do with the brand beyond a near-identical spelling.
• Not the trainer. Onitsuka Tiger sells a Mexico 66 colourway called
  PATOU. Different company, different product.
• Not patchouli. The fragrance ingredient is spelled differently and is
  not connected to the house, though Patou does have a famous perfume, which is below.
• Not the cognac, the nursery chain and the restaurants that share the
  name in various countries.

A short history

Jean Patou opened his house in Paris in 1914. The First World War interrupted it almost
immediately, and he reopened after returning from the front, running it as a family business
with his sister Madeleine and her husband Raymond Barbas. Through the 1920s he did what the
house still trades on: he took the corset out of the dress, shortened the skirt, and built a
sports line meant to be worn in town. He dressed the tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen, and he
put his initials on bathrobes and swimwear for Deauville, Cannes and Biarritz, which is where
the JP monogram comes from. Between 1919 and 1924 the house says its revenue grew thirtyfold.

In 1930 Patou launched Joy, created by the perfumer Henri Alméras
and marketed as the costliest perfume in the world, a deliberate answer to the 1929 crash.
Jean Patou died in 1936. The house continued under Madeleine and Raymond Barbas, and from 1954
its artistic direction passed through an extraordinary run of names: Marc Bohan, Karl
Lagerfeld, Michel Goma, Jean Paul Gaultier, Angelo Tarlazzi and Christian Lacroix. Couture
stopped in 1987, and the fashion business wound down after Lacroix left.

The 2018 relaunch

LVMH announced a strategic agreement with Designer Parfums in September 2018 and took a
majority stake in the clothing division. The group dropped the first name, so the maison now
trades as Patou rather than Jean Patou. Sidney Toledano appointed Guillaume Henry artistic
director, and Henry showed his first collection during Paris Fashion Week in September 2019.
Henry left in February 2026 and the house has not named a
successor.

The fragrance business, including Joy, stayed with Designer Parfums. That split matters if
you are shopping: the clothes and the perfume are run by different owners.
The ownership question is worth its own page.

What Patou makes now

• Les Essentiels, a permanent range the house keeps in production year to
  year instead of replacing each season: logo t-shirts, tank tops, jersey and the Iconic
  trouser.
• La Patou Blouse, the high-volume
  drawstring blouse with grosgrain ties.
• Tailoring in RWS virgin wool twill with JP-engraved gold-tone buttons,
  plus the Iconic trouser.
• The bloomer skirt and bloomer dress, the
  gathered mini shape the house returns to every season.
• Leather goods: Le Patou Bag and Le Petit
  Patou, plus the raffia and wicker bucket bags.
• Jewellery handcrafted in Bali, and caps,
  bucket hats, scrunchies and socks.

How to say it

Pa-TOO, with the stress on the second syllable and a silent final consonant, as in the
French. Not “pay-tow”.

You can browse the full Patou collection at Coveti. Start with designer dresses, designer tops and designer bags.

More Patou guides

• Le Patou Bag: The Complete Guide
• Patou Iconic Trousers: Fit, Fabric and Styling
• How to Style Patou: An Editor Guide
• Patou Jewellery: The Coin, the Bocca and Bali
• Who Owns Patou? LVMH, Designer Parfums and the 2018 Split
• Patou Review: Quality, Sizing and Whether It Is Worth It

Frequently asked questions

Is Patou a French brand?

Yes. Patou was founded in Paris in 1914 and is still based there, with its atelier on the Ile de la Cite a few steps from Notre-Dame. It is owned by the French group LVMH.

Is Patou the same as Jean Patou?

It is the same house under a shorter name. The label traded as Jean Patou from 1914; when LVMH relaunched the fashion business in 2018 it dropped the first name, so the clothing is now branded Patou. The fragrance business still uses the Jean Patou name in places, because it sits with a different owner.

Why does Patou mean a dog in French?

Patou is the common French word for the Pyrenean Mountain Dog, a large white livestock guardian breed. The two uses are unrelated; the fashion house is named after its founder.

What is Patou best known for?

Historically, for freeing women from the corset, for dressing Suzanne Lenglen in tennis wear, for the JP monogram and for the perfume Joy. Today, for La Patou Blouse, the bloomer skirt, the Iconic trouser and Le Patou Bag.

Does Coveti sell Patou perfume?

No. Coveti stocks the ready-to-wear, bags, jewellery and accessories. The fragrance line, including Joy, is run by Designer Parfums and is not part of our range.

Sources

• Patou, “The Story of the Maison” and “Jean Patou is now Patou”, patou.com
• Wikipedia, “Patou” and “Joy (perfume)”
• Wikidata entity Q3173864 (Patou, French fashion house)
• FashionNetwork, “Patou parts ways with artistic director Guillaume Henry”, 6 February 2026

Written and fact-checked by Gemma Deeks, Fashion Editor at Coveti. Last reviewed September 2026.