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Page Boy maternity wear
The Frankfurt sisters were the co-founders and the principal designer of Dallas-based Page Boy. [Photo: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office]
The Last Word: The USPTO on How Three Dallas Sisters Gave Maternity Wear a Stylish Innovation
by David Seeley | Jan 23, 2023
Long ago, maternity wear was one of the unmentionables of fashion. That changed forever in 1937, when sisters Elsie and Edna Frankfurt founded Page Boy, America's first high-end maternity wear firm, in Dallas. In 1939, the sisters patented their game-changing solution: an adjustable skirt design for pregnant women that "accommodated" a baby bump instead of clumsily trying to hide it. They engineered a "window" in front of the skirt that expanded using drawstrings—while keeping the hemline stylishly parallel to the ground.
