The Hands that Sew the Sequins

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I am immensely inspired by haute couture fashion.


I find the embroidery, embellishment, and elaborate handwork worthy of my respect and study. You may not realize that this work is created by a handful of artisans -- artisans who labor to transform a designer dress into a walking work of breathtaking art.


It is handwork that defines haute couture dresses and one dress can cost as much as $150,000 (give or take a couple tens of thousands). Needless to say, the market for these dresses is dwindling in modern day, and as a result, so are the artisans.


In the 1920's, there were over 10,000 french embroiderers and today the numbers have shrunk to about 200. The House of Lesage, France's oldest embroiderer still provides services to famous haute couture design houses such as Lacroix, Dior and Chanel. There is a beautiful article titled, "The Hands that Sew the Sequins" from the New York Times in 2006 here.


Lesage has an embroidery school in Paris and it is my dream to go to school there one day. This is the cover of their school brochure and the pages are dog-eared from dreaming...


So, as you look at the creations that I present to you today from Christian Lacroix, pay close attention to how textures, threads, flowers, threads...are all placed and draped and styled just like an artist paints a painting.


There is a deliberateness about the choices that result in an overall final work of art that is compelling and beautiful and wondrous.


And isn't that what I am striving to do in my work? To manipulate fabric, beads and thread into the most beautiful expression of my spirit that I'm capable of?


My study is here. It's in the haute couture houses of fashion where designers such as Chanel and Dior are buying up ateliers that specialize in making the best shoes, millinery, buttons, lace, purses...to preserve it, to safeguard it...so it's not lost.


If you look at the big picture, the needlearts as they were practiced during Elizabethan times or in the days of Marie Antoinette are dying. The degree and the complexity of the work that is being created today, pales in comparison. No wonder Penelope Cruz chose to look back 60 years in choosing her gown for the Academy Awards.

There is good news still and that good news is that there IS beautiful work still being done -- and it's being done in the fashion industry. In a quote in the NYTimes article from Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of the Museum of Fashion Institute Technology, she says:

Fashion isn't necessarily about concept but about craftmanship. You need the people to make the best ribbon, the best lace, the best hats. This is essential to keeping French fashion prestigious and creative.

So perhaps the next time you look at a haute couture gown, you will pause and reflect on the artistry of the hands that used the irons to fashion fabric into flowers,


that spent the hundreds of hours beading sequins and glass onto lace with a tambour hoook,


that couched gold bullion over yards of silk...


And for my crazy quilt friends, isn't a haute couture dress the ultimate fancy quilt? Though not made with scraps, it is a unique combination of silks, chiffons, velvets, trims, buttons, millinery feathers and flowers, crystals, beads, sequins and yes, embroidery. Still made by hand.


It inspires me more than I can translate into words.


So this is the reason, my friends, you see so much "fashion" on a needlework blog.

All fashions shown here today are from Christian Lacroix Spring 2009 Haute Couture collection. You can see his full collection here and watch his fashion show here.