Marjolaine

Marjolaine is a French family house making silk and lace nightwear, loungewear and lingerie, founded in the 1930s in Villeurbanne, on the eastern edge of Lyon. It is now run by the fourth generation of the same family from a workshop in Béligneux, in the Ain department northeast of the city. Its nightgowns, pajamas and robes are cut from silk, cashmere and French Calais lace and sold through its own boutiques and online across France and the European Union.

Our database had Marjolaine founded in Lyon in 1958. The house's own account puts the start two decades earlier, in a suburban shop that was not even a lingerie business at first.

A wool shop in Villeurbanne

The house history begins with Jeanne, who opened a shop in Villeurbanne selling knitting wools, baby layettes and needlework. Lingerie came in through the back room. When suppliers could not deliver, her husband began making lingerie himself in the space behind the shop, so that the store would have something to sell.

That origin explains much about the company. It did not start as a fashion label with a designer's name on the door. It started as a retailer making its own stock, which is why the house still runs its own boutiques and still talks about fit and cut before image.

Four generations, one family

The business passed from parent to child. Roger ran the company next, followed by his daughter Nicole. Nicole's daughter Carole now leads it with her husband, Stéphane, and their children are part of the house as well. Marjolaine presents this as "quatre générations de création," four generations of design.

Many old French lingerie names now belong to larger groups. Marjolaine has stayed independent, at least as far as anything on its site or in our sources shows.

Calais lace cut by hand

The house's signature is the combination of silk with lace from Calais, the northern French town whose leavers machines produce some of the finest lace in the world. In the Béligneux workshop, the lace is cut and assembled by hand, so that a scalloped edge follows a neckline instead of being trimmed straight across it. The workshop also uses Cornely machines, the chain-stitch embroidery machines long used in French couture ateliers for decorative stitching. The difference between applied lace and stitched decoration is covered in our lace vs embroidered comparison.

The house describes its standards as "la qualité, la pertinence de l'élégance, l'exigence de la coupe": quality, elegance that suits its wearer, and a demanding cut. Sizes run from French 36 to 54, wider than many silk nightwear makers offer, and that range follows from the retail roots. A shop that sells to its own neighborhood has to dress more than one figure.

What the house makes now

The core is nightwear. Long and short silk nightgowns, pajamas, robes and camisoles make up most of the collection, with a set of permanent styles grouped as "les intemporels." Around that sit loungewear, cashmere pieces, swimwear and beachwear, and a small ready-to-wear line of dresses, tops and trousers. Production takes place in France near Lyon, a region the house ties to its own sense of fashion craft.

Marjolaine sits in the same regional circle as the Lyon lingerie house Lise Charmel, though the two work at different ends of the wardrobe. Lise Charmel builds structured bras and corsetry. Marjolaine makes the long gown and the robe that go over them.

The head office is at 469 rue de Derontet in Béligneux. The house ships across France and the EU and keeps a list of its boutiques on its website. About ninety years on, the business started by a wool seller's husband sewing in a back room is still making its own stock.

Last updated October 7, 2026