Goyard, trunk maker on the Rue Saint-Honoré since 1853

Goyard, the trunk maker on the Rue Saint-Honoré, took its name in 1853, when François Goyard bought the house where he had trained as an apprentice. It dates back to 1792, when Pierre-François Martin made boxes, trunks and packing cases, and in 1834 he moved his shop to the Rue Saint-Honoré.

Martin handed the business to Louis-Henri Morel, who took on the young François Goyard as an apprentice in 1845. When Morel died, François took it over, then passed it to his son Edmond in 1885. The coated Goyardine canvas appeared at the Exposition Universelle of 1900, and the house won medals at several exhibitions up to 1925.

Robert Goyard ran it from 1937 to 1979. In 1998 Jean-Michel Signoles took over, opening workshops in Carcassonne and shops in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Personal marking, with initials and painted stripes, remains a tradition of the house.

At 233 Rue Saint-Honoré, the number given to the 1834 shop when Paris renumbered its streets in 1856, the house shows its trunks, bags and Goyardine pieces, which can be marked with a client’s initials.