Chanel & Lesage: Setting Off Embroidery Fireworks
The New York Times
14 Nov 2023
“Embroidery is to haute couture what fireworks are to Bastille Day.”
No one seems to know precisely when François Lesage said this, although the speculation at Maison Lesage is that it was sometime in the 1980s when embroidery was very much in vogue in haute couture collections.
Case in point: One embellishment created for a fall couture outfit comprised 30,000 transparent gold glass beads, 10,000 light-gold cuvettes (curved sequins), 1,000 black sequins and 5,169 roses in gemstones such as ruby and amethysts. “It’s an allover blouse,” said Hubert Barrère, Lesage’s artistic director, “embroidered with bouquets of blackberries, sequins and tubes covered with gold leaf and blackberries represented by plum, garnet and jet crystals.”
Much like the fireworks of Mr. Lesage’s quote — which appears in a book by the fashion writer Patrick Mauriès — the piece was exploding with color, shimmering and shining from all angles.
