Grisette

A young woman carries a wrapped package, presumably en route to deliver a dressmaker’s order. The term grisette originally referred to a working-class young woman employed in needle trades such as dressmaking or embroidery. As noted in Émile Littré’s Dictionnaire de la langue française, she was a “young woman who has a trade, such as dressmaker, embroiderer, etc., and who readily allows young men to court her”—a phrasing that historically functioned as a euphemism for the economic realities of urban survival, distinguishing her from the more fully dependent lorette or the kept woman.