Catharina Kruysveldt-de Mare (1874-1956) started working as a seamstress, when things started going badly for her husband’s business.

She soon opened her own studio on Amsterdam’s Spiegelgracht in 1905. This marked the start of an impressive career. In 1912 she set up an appointment-only fashion house, first on Prinsengracht and then Keizergracht, with new customers only admitted on the recommendation of existing ones. Kruysveldt-de Mare regularly visited Paris where she purchased licences from fashion designers such as Balenciaga and Christian Dior. On her return to Amsterdam she would recreate the designs and present them at fashion shows all over the country. In this way Kruysveldt-de Mare was a key figure in the interpretation of 20th-century Parisian fashion in the Netherlands.