#delacroix

(Note: Delcroix went on to marry lady-in-waiting Madeleine Zanotti in an arranged marriage designed to let her escape to Europe following the Revolution it seems. Empress Alexandra's sister, Victoria Mountbatten, recalls in her memoirs: Madelaine escaped from St. Petersburg on her return from Sibzeria having gone through the Bolshevik form of marriage with the old French Court Coiffeur Delcroix. As soon as this "French" couple reached Paris they separated again and Madelaine, ultimately, became Ernie's housekeeper at the New Palace."

The Empress was famously meticulous about her appearance. She ordered her gowns exclusively from Charles Worth, the Parisian couturier whose clientele included Europe’s wealthiest royal families and the most fashionable socialites. Even after six pregnancies, she kept her waist laced to 65 centimeters and became the first woman in Russia to undergo plastic surgery. Demanding only the best, she never considered replacing her trusted hairdresser—an endorsement that served as Delcroix’s greatest advertisement.

The French master devised an everyday hairstyle for Maria Feodorovna built on three elements: curls, bangs, and an intricate braid. Early photographs of her as the Danish Princess Dagmar show her with straight hair, a simple center part, a high open forehead, and a heavy knot at the nape—striking for a young princess, but too plain for an empress. Delcroix transformed her look by curling her thick brown hair, sweeping it upward, adding soft bangs across her forehead, and weaving an elaborate braid at the back. The result was a style both solemn and modern, beautiful yet moderately restrained.

For grand occasions, Delcroix styled her more luxuriously, often arranging long curls (sometimes with the aid of extensions) to cascade over her shoulders. His service to the court spanned more than 25 years, during which he also styled Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Younger for her coronation.

Maria Feodorovna herself was a dazzling figure—impossibly charming, vivacious, and adored by society. Her daughter-in-law, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, by contrast, lacked what contemporaries called “the art of charming—the ability and desire to please the crowd.” The relationship between the radiant Maria Feodorovna and the reserved, stubborn Alix was inevitably strained; they had little in common.

According to the recollections of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, sister of Nicholas II, Maria Feodorovna constantly purchased fashionable outfits for her daughter-in-law: “flashy, with trim.” Yet Alexandra, who had grown up in one of the most frugal and conservative royal families in Europe, refused to wear them.

The last Russian empress had little interest in fashion. She could not understand how ordinary women could don the harem-style trousers and “hobble skirts” popularized by Parisian fashion dictator Paul Poiret. She rarely had her nails done, never used cosmetics, and wore her hair in the simplest manner: “Her reddish-golden hair was never touched by curling tongs. She preferred the plainest style, and only on holidays or formal occasions would she allow herself something more elaborate.”

Day to day, her hair was combed by a maid known in the family as Tudels. In her diary, Alexandra once complained: “Tudels left for two days and two nights, so Tatiana dresses me and styles my hair—and she does it very quickly and well, she manages everything very skillfully. Not like Olga, who is lazy.” At that time, her daughters were still very young: Olga was only fifteen, Tatiana thirteen. Yet even then the Empress never appeared at major events with her hair arranged by her children or a simple maid.

On occasion, her hair was styled by Delcroix, sent by Maria Feodorovna, but more often by Pavel Petrovich Pinasso, a second-generation French hairdresser. His father, Pierre-Louis Pinasso, had owned the fashionable salon Lucien on Nevsky Prospekt. In photographs taken during great imperial ceremonies, one can see the results of his craft—hair dressed with curling tongs, arranged in the more elaborate style befitting an empress.