How did it begin?
Francois Goyard, the founder of La Maison Goyard, was born in 1828 in Clamency, Burgundy. In 1832, his family moved to Paris, where Goyard later became an apprentice to luggage maker Morel.
Morel had just acquired packing case and trunk makers Maison Martin, which supplied goods to the Duchess of Berry, stepdaughter of King Charles X and mother to the heir.
As Morel had no heir, he groomed Goyard as his successor. He took over when Morel died in 1853, changing the company's name to La Maison Goyard. That year, he married a couturier named Leopoldine Delaporte, with whom he had two sons, and moved into an apartment above the boutique at 233 Rue Saint-Honore.
Goyard's eldest son, Edmond, took over the company at the age of 25 and was instrumental in elevating Goyard's status, renaming the label E. Goyard Aine in homage to his grandfather, and creating Goyard's signature interlaced chevron design in 1892. Edmond opened boutiques in Bordeaux, Biarritz and Monte Carlo, and concessions at John Wanamaker stores in New York and Philadelphia.
By 1900, the seal 'Ne Ct' - notable commercant - appeared on all the company's stationery. Goyard won a bronze medal in the Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Paris in 1900, and gold medals at Milan and London in 1906 and 1908. By this time, La Maison Goyard had become the luggage-maker of choice to the British royal family, the Russian emperor, the Maharajah of Kapurthala, the US President and John Rockefeller.