Maison Lesage: Haute Couture Embroidery

Kim Baker is taking a look at a fascinating component of the NGV’s Fashion and Textile Collection. Kim writes: ‘During Stage 3 and now Stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne, due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, I have noticed a return to embroidery and sewing amongst my girlfriends. Masks of course are being churned out on the trusty Janome, but I have also noticed, with more time on our hands, a return to the “gentle” more mindful art of embroidery.

This gave me pause to think about some of the embroidery in the NGV’s collection and specifically haute couture embroidery created for many of the world’s greatest fashion houses.

Maison Lesage, Paris’ oldest embroidery atelier, has been creating lush, richly detailed fabric pieces since 1924. We are lucky enough to have many examples of Lesage embroidery in the NGV collection.

Maison Lesage was created when Albert Lesage took over Michonet (founded in 1858), one of the few remaining embroidery ateliers of the Belle Epoque period. Michonet had already established an important clientele of fashion designers including the father of haute couture, Charles Frederick Worth, Jacques Doucet and Callot Souers – examples of all three designers feature in the NGV’s Fashion and Textiles collection.

Together Albert & his wife Marie-Louise, who both had backgrounds in women’s fashion, began to create for couturiers such as Madeleine Vionnet and Elsa Schiaparelli. Later came collaborations with Balenciaga, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix and Chanel. 

LESAGE & VIONNET

The important collaboration between Lesage and Madeleine Vionnet that started in the 1920’s was cemented with Albert Lesage’s marriage to Marie-Louise Favot (nicknamed “Yo”) who had worked for Vionnet collecting sources of inspiration for the designer, sketching ideas for embroidery designs and reproducing patterns.

Madeleine Vionnet, apprenticed to learn dressmaking at age 12, was one of those rare figures in fashion history who knew how to cut, stitch, and assemble a garment. She was famous for her bias-cut technique, a technique of cutting on the diagonal grain of the fabric which creates a sinuous and slightly clingy silhouette.

Her use of fluid bias cut chiffon and crepe meant that Lesage had to adapt to these light fabrics and create designs that did not weigh the fabrics down. To accommodate the delicate fabrics Albert Lesage adopted a technique known as Tambour or Luneville embroidery where a tambour hook is used for bead embroidery. The hook catches the thread on the backside of the fabric, pulling it to the front side to attach beads and sequins. This was a much quicker method than previously used and the precise nature of the application meant that subtle patterns could be created on delicate fabrics allowing Albert Lesage to demonstrate his creativity and introduce countless innovations.

During their fifteen-year collaboration Maison Lesage produced more than 1500 designs for Vionnet including this one in the NGV’s collection.

This light, gossamer evening dress is constructed from several panels of pale lemon silk chiffon. It is a deceptively simple silhouette, both romantic & figure-enhancing. The pastel tones and matte glow of chiffon is illuminated by beading and sequins in green and pale yellow which conjure the illusion of the moon – both full and in crescent form. A light sash belt in silk chiffon is draped around the waist. The NGV collection also features a sample of the embroidery from Lesage.

LESAGE & SCHIAPARELLI

The Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli had already had considerable success with her avant garde designs when she approached Albert Lesage in 1934. Her aim was to expand her decorative repertoire, until then limited to braids and trimmings, and add something special to her designs.

Behind this aim was also a desire to help the company which was on the brink of collapse. As a trial run she ordered a series of embroidered belts from Lesage that featured gold thread passementerie with cabochons of coral and turquoise. They were followed by necklaces, yokes and collars which led to more garments.

Lesage’s relationship with Schiaparelli lasted more than twenty years and their inventive and experimental approach was a perfect match for Schiaparelli’s playful and individual style.

In contrast to the work created for Vionnet, Schiaparelli was more interested in the three-dimensional tactile nature of the decoration. Fabrics were decorated in relief and she favoured techniques used on military garments including padding, twisted gold braid, quilting, embossing, use of mirror fragments and semi-precious stones.

Schiaparelli’s four 1938 collections, considered to be her finest, all featured work from Lesage. The work seen below is one of the highlights of the famed 1938 Zodiac Collection and featured in the recent NGV exhibition The Krystyna Campbell Pretty Fashion Gift.

The Zodiac collection was Schiaparelli’s most lavish to date, featuring luxurious velvets and brightly coloured wools embellished with extraordinary gilt metal embroidery. The Hall of Mirrors design is a two-piece set comprising a black silk velvet dress and jacket. The velvet jacket features Lesage’s lavish appliqued embellishments at the front with trompe l’oeil gold and silver mirrors over each side front. Baroque in style, each mirror comprised twenty-five smaller mirrored rectangles surrounded by glass beads referencing the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The ladylike look was dramatically transformed when the jacket was removed for dinner and dancing, revealing a backless dress.

Owned by Vera Bowler of Bristol, not a woman of vast means, she budgeted and saved hard to purchase this ensemble from Schiaparelli’s London house to attend her husband’s company dinner-dance in 1938.

FRANCOISE LESAGE

In 1949, on his father’s death, Francois Lesage took over the family business. Francois had grown up in the atelier, born “into a pile of beads and sequins,” as he often said. Just as his father had worked with leading fashion designers, Francois forged close relationships with designers, learning to interpret their interesting requests. Francoise continued collaborating with Schiaparelli – it is written that he once “spent a winter eating mussels because she wanted to use them in her work”. He also cultivated relationships with Christian Dior, Cristobel Balenciaga, Christian Lacroix, Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld the creative director of Chanel.

LESAGE AND YVES SAINT LAURENT

It was however the collaboration with Yves Saint Laurent over the years that produced some real masterpieces and none more so than the two 1988 jackets that were inspired by Van Gogh paintings. The NGV acquired one of those jackets earlier this year, ‘Les Tournesols’ or Sunflowers evening jacket.

The jacket based on Van Gogh’s last painting in his sunflower series “Vase with fifteen sunflowers” represents the pinnacle of Saint Laurent and Lesage’s vision and craftsmanship. It was created from over 350,000 sequins, 100,000 ceramic bugle beads, and individually painted fabric petals. It reportedly weighs over 18kg, and it took more than 770 hours of embroidery.

After they met in 1963 Yves Saint Laurent would only work with Francoise Lesage, a collaboration that lasted 44 years.

The “Hommage a ma maison” jacket created in 1989 was Yves Saint Laurent’s tribute to the skills of the artisans in his own couture house. Hand-embroidered at Lesage’s specialist ateliers the jacket took over 700 hours to complete and is one of only two examples ever made. With its rock-crystal and gilt decoration it was intended to resemble the mirrors and chandeliers of Yves Saint Laurent’s couture salons. During the design phase, Yves Saint Laurent asked François Lesage to come to the salon and demanded “Francois, make me something that is like a chandelier reflecting off the mirror with the sky of Paris in the background”.

As evidenced in the final product Lesage was able to accommodate this request in a spectacular manner. In 2017 influential fashion journalist Alexander Fury named this ensemble as one of ten looks that defined the work of Yves Saint Laurent. Recently acquired for the NGV from the collection of Mouna Ayoub a wealthy socialite dubbed the “Queen of Couture” it is reported that Ayoub owns the world’s largest collection of haute couture, a 1,600 piece wardrobe housed in its own apartment in Monaco.

LESAGE & CHANEL

As the haute couture industry became less and less profitable in the late 1990’s, many of the artisan ateliers of Paris were forced to shut their doors.

When Karl Lagerfeld took over as Chanel’s head designer in 1983, he began a long working relationship with Lesage. In 2002, Lagerfeld’s appreciation for the craftsmanship of Lesage, as well as for other couture ateliers, led Chanel to create a subsidiary company called Paraffection. Dedicated to the preservation of craftsmanship, Maison Lesage became part of that organisation. Despite being linked to Chanel the aim of Paraffection was to ensure the survival of the chosen ateliers giving members the creative freedom to continue to work with regular clients and enjoy new commissions. In 2002 Lagerfeld was instrumental in creating the Métiers d’Art show that showcases the work of Paraffection’s Maison’s d’art—milliners, jewellers, embroiders, lace makers, feather makers and shoemakers. Each year in December Chanel holds the runway show that pays tribute to these exceptional artisans. You can view the 2019/2020 show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyWDxarX6aQ

MAISON LESAGE TODAY

In 1992, Francois opened Ecole Lesage, a school of embroidery which continues to this day.  The school, which is in Paris, offers classes for embroiderers of any level, from beginners to those wishing to study to become a master of haute couture embroidery.  

After Francoise’s death in 2011 Chanel appointed Hubert Barrere to be the artistic director of Maison Lesage. Francoise’s son Jean-Francois opened his own embroidery atelier Lesage Interieurs, which creates designs for home and fashion.

Over the years Lesage’s archive of designs has grown to over 70,000 exquisite embroidered samples. Each design takes hundreds of hours of handwork – in fact, Francois Lesage once estimated that the entire Lesage archive represents up to nine million hours of work.

“Hand embroidery is something emotional,” says Hubert Barrere. “It isn’t a kind of technical exhibitionism, and its value doesn’t come simply from the hours and hours of meticulous work involved. Above all else, it’s something that comes from the soul, it makes you feel something, without quite knowing why.”‘

Thank you, Kim, for taking us behind the scenes of French fashion houses. I am looking forward to seeing more beading on the streets of Melbourne when we emerge from the lockdown – perhaps something with a coronavirus motif?