At the height of New York's Gilded Age couture boom, Thurn designer and co-owner Carolyn Hague joined other prominent dressmakers in attempting to evade punishing American import duties on Parisian clothing and luxury fabrics. Before tariff reforms, duties could consume 50 to 80 percent of an imported garment's value; woolen cloth and other materials could effectively double in price. The scheme relied on the transatlantic traffic of ocean liners: steamer trunks packed with Paris fashions and fabrics were quietly moved from the docks of arriving ships to those of departing vessels. The trunks could then be reclaimed as though they belonged to passengers who had booked a voyage but canceled at the last minute, allowing the goods to avoid normal customs collection.
In 1909, customs authorities uncovered the operation. Hague and the owners of other New York fashion houses were arrested and subsequently fined, exposing how even the city's most prestigious couture establishments depended on illicit methods to preserve the margins and exclusivity of imported fashion. The episode did not destroy Thurn, which continued to serve elite clients for decades, but it revealed the legal and financial pressures behind supposedly immaculate Fifth Avenue luxury: the same houses selling Parisian distinction to Rockefeller- and Mellon-level society were willing to manipulate shipping procedures to escape the government's import bill.
