Maison Lesage: Haute Couture Embroidery

Founded in 1858 under the name of Michonet (then supplier to such fashion legends as the House of Worth) before being bought by the Lesage family in the 1920s, Maison Lesage has created exceptional embroidery motifs, often requiring hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of precise beadwork, for star fashion designers across the decades.   Fashion legends such as Elsa Schiaparelli (with her famous Circus and Zodiac collections) and Yves Saint Laurent (whose Van Gogh iris-embroidered jackets number over 200,000 pearls and 250,000 sequins) worked exclusively with Maison Lesage, but the embroiderer also collaborated with a raft of international designers, including Balmain, the House of Worth, Vionnet and Lacroix. Perhaps best known today for the masterpieces it creates for Karl Lagerfeld s Chanel collections, Maison Lesage was bought by Chanel in 2002 to ensure the survival of its unique history and extraordinary skills.   Illustrated with specially commissioned photography of the house s archives and illuminated with texts by Patrick Mauriès, Maison Lesage is both a tribute to exceptional craftsmanship and a journey through a hundred years of fashion at its most sumptuous and inventive.   Table of Contents   Entrée des fournisseurs Naissance du luxe Les jeux du hasard Passage de témoin Un biais Mainteuses et Lunévilleuses Yo, Marie-Louise Naissance d une maison Une autre adresse Schiaparelli L acrobate et les papillons L imprévu Survivre Broderies, passementeries, tissus François Une maison en bois Retour à la Grange Batelière Asparagus et Coromandel Ancien et nouveau régime Six cents Heures Trois rencontres 29 et 92 La route des Indes Relèves