maison lesage atelier – realizing dreams _ couture notebook

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Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop

NOVEMBER 17, 2012 / 5 COMMENTS

Maison Lesage Atelier REALIZING DREAMS


As the head of embroidery house Lesage, Hubert Barrre is creating food for designers creative inspirations and continuing the long tradition of stunning craftsmanship so closely associated with the world of HauteCouture.

Chanel, Dior, Valentino, Alexandre Vauthier, Gustavo Lins, Bouchra Jarrar, Didit Hediprasetyo and Jantaminau. besides showing during Haute Couture weeks ocial or unocial calendar, these diverse couturiershad all one thing in common on their runaway this July: exclusive creations by the famed embroidery atelier of Lesage.

Maison Lesage Atelier REALIZING DREAMS | COUTURE NOTEBOOK http://couturenotebook.com/2012/11/17/maison-lesage-atelier/

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Founded in the 1920s by Albert and Marie-Louise Lesage, who had taken over an embroidery workshop that supplied the rst great names in couture (Frederick Worth, Jean Paquin and Madeleine Vionnet), themaison Lesage quickly made a name for itself with its technical innovations (straight-grain vermicelli beadings) and avant-garde motifs of shells, circus performers and zodiac signs realizing all the embroideries of

Elsa Schiaperelli. After the war, Francois Lesage, the son of Albert and Marie-Louise, took over control of the house and quickly won the trust of new clients like Pierre Balmain, Cristbal Balenciaga, f Christian Dior,

Hubert de Givenchy, Christian Lacroix and Yves Saint Laurent (most famously recreating Van Goghs irises for him).

Though Lesage was bought by Chanel in 2002, the atelier has retained its independence, continuing to work for all the top couture houses, and is responsible for many of beadings and embroideries that grace the

famous Parisian couture collections.

Each seasons, the few weeks before these couture collections are a mad rush with the workshops working round the clock to bring the most extravagant ideas to life. Time is always the key challenge. This season the

rst designers came in May and gave us something to do in June.. But many designers came to us mid-June with their nal request to present early July. Its always a mad hell, because such works necessitate hundreds

of hours and even though we have about 100 workers or petite mains it is still a gigantic work each time, explains Lesages Artistic Director Hubert Barrre, who took over the maison after the passing of FrancoisLesage last year.



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DIOR Haute Couture


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Very few metiers are under such a precise timing. If the Chanel show is on Tuesday at 10am, it just has to be ready. There is no fudging the deadline. Its an absolute stress You have a deadline and you see the time

slowly drifting away. But you cant refuse. Its not a word that exists at Lesage, he adds.

With 60,000 samples accumulated over its long history, the Lesage archives represent the biggest collection of couture embroidery in the world, with the atelier adding to this rich heritage every year with around a

hundred of new embroideries designs.


Our job is to give intellectual and creative food to the couturier. Though the archives are a source of inspiration, we always create a new sample for the designer, Barrre says, explaining that a designer will usuallycome to the atelier with an idea or a general theme, which then needs to be translated and rened.

For example this year with Raf Simmons for Dior it was taking back the Dior Code of the 1950s, so we look into the 1950s archives, but he also wanted saturated colors and a great purity and simplicity. So we tried

to minimalize certain thing and recolored them. With Mr. Lagerfeld, it was pink with the spirit of new vintage. These were two dierent visions of vintage, which was very interesting. At Dior, Ralf Simons went back

in time to look at the code, simplify them to bring them to date. Whether Karls new vintage was completely the opposite. He knows perfectly the code and with him vintage is already out of fashion in 6 months, so he

creates the vintage of tomorrow. Of course, the designers dont tell us that, but thats what you have to breath in and deduct, he says.

Being a designer himself probably helps Barrre grasps these ideas beer.


Having study design at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, Barrre showed early on an anity for decoration more than design per se.

I could have joined a couture house as an unpaid intern, but I needed to reimburse my student loan and the embroiderer Maison Vermont was looking for someone to design fabric, he recalls. He joined its atelier in

xxx and soon was working for couturiers like Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Bohan at Dior. It was a fantastic door to enter in the inner circle of couture because I got the opportunity to meet early

on all these great couturiers, which at the time were using embroideries much more than today he says.


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After a two year sting with Vermont, Barrre had a diverse career working along Thierry Mugler, Daniel Swarovski and then costume designer Vicaire, where he developed a detailed knowledge of historic clothingand embroidery and started a love aair with the corset.

Corsetry has been the foundation of womens clothing over the ages. But for me a corset is about liberty. Today its not a carcan imposed, but a choice a woman makes. Many couture dresses have actually a loose

corset foundation inside to keep it all in and create a curvy silthouee, he explains

In 1995, Barrre launched his own collection of corset, which quickly won him some plaudits as he received the following year the Grand Prix de la Mode de la Ville de Paris. Soon he was designing corsets forAlexandre McQueen and John Galliano at Dior. Ever a multi-tasker,

Barrre also joined Maison Hurel, another famed Parisian embroidery house, as its creative director, staying there for 14 years, and although the corset remains his favorite garment and the basis of his work, he does

not want to limit himself to corsets alone and has since 2001 presented his own collection of clothes which allow him to express his artistry in corsetry while exploring new horizons with designs in tulle and muslinheld in place solely by bones.

Barrre is the rst to admit hes no artisan. I know how to draw and I think I have some idea of what good taste is, but I cant sew and I cant embroider, Im not an artisan or technician. When I draw I dont think

about embroidery technique. On the contrary, you need to go beyond the technique, though of course I know what can be done. But you must forget it in order to free your creative spirit, he explains

For now, Barrre is concentrating on the new challenge of Lesage and has put aside his own presentations. But its going to continue, he muses.

First published in Couture by Designare Vol 3

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Atelier

Atelier, Atelier Lesage, Chanel, Dior, French Haute Couture

4 Comments

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Add yours

Faryal JANUARY 16, 2013 1:46 AM

Its so interesting to read about the great embroidery house. I am especially aracted to embellishment detail and am good at creating detailed embroidered and embellished peices. I also read that Lesage has an

embroidery workshop in Madras. He creates peices for palaces and other important places. I would love to provide embroidery for some well known fashion houses in parts of the world where hand embellishment

is an expensive luxury. Thats always something I think I would be very happy doing, apart from designing for my own fashion house.

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