Their names are Christiane, Laurie, Marion and Vivien. And are among the magician couturiers of Lemarié, one of the twelve art houses belonging to the Chanel group and gathered at 19M, between Paris and Aubervilliers. The objective is clear: to save and perpetuate these crafts. Founded in 1886, the Lemarié house is one of the last companies in the world specializing in featherwork, the making of fabric flowers, sewing, but also pleating, through its subsidiary Lognon. Extraordinary skills that Christelle Kocher, artistic director of Lemarié, has been orchestrating since 2010.
“Chanel bought the house in 1996 and moved it here eighteen months ago, thus giving it the opportunity to work in excellent conditions, to develop and to pass on this exceptional craftsmanship so that it does not disappear. We use techniques that are sometimes centuries old in a contemporary way to sublimate the haute couture and ready-to-wear pieces imagined by Virginie Viard, director of Chanel’s fashion design studio”, she explains.
Creation and transmission
The modernity of the building designed by Rudy Ricciotti contrasts with certain old tools and machines from the workshops. Some 2,200 metal cutting irons representing flowers, hearts and other motifs are used daily. In the workshops reigns a monastic silence. “Concentration is important to have the right gesture. There is something meditative in spending hours, even days or weeks on certain pieces”, confides Christelle Kocher. A job that no machine could do.
At the Plumes workshop, Christiane Bourhis, 31, works with technicality and subtlety on a skirt from the spring-summer 2023 collection. part of the nib has been burned, sometimes dyed in color, and I have to place ten strands, exactly 14 centimeters, to make up a pinch A little glue on the tip that I crush to get something very fine, I cut off the surplus and I place the strand precisely in the place provided by the pattern. This then allows each garment to be reproduced identically.” Christiane joined Lemarié eleven years ago, after studying art and joining the professional high school Octave Feuillet in Paris, the only school to teach featherwork techniques.
“I have always dreamed of working for haute couture”
Laurie Laburthe learned her job as a seamstress and embroiderer in the house. “I’ve always dreamed of working for haute couture. I did the Esmod school and my end-of-studies internship here; I never left,” says the 27-year-old young woman. Leaning over a panel constituting the front of a jacket, like a magician, she transforms and embellishes the textile material, placing intersecting sequin stripes in a plane to create a quilted effect. “These techniques are not taught in schools,” she says.
Here, we do not assemble the clothes. Laurie’s piece will go to the Ateliers Chanel for fittings with Virginie Viard. “I feed on contemporary art, techniques of yesterday and today, new technologies, and I choose feathers, ribbons, colors… to interpret Chanel codes. Craftsmanship is a creative force and I am a force of proposal which enriches the intentions of Virginie Viard, in an enriching dialogue and back and forth”, explains Christelle Kocher.
A little further on, a visit to the Lognon pleating workshop is just as surprising. Some 2,700 looms and two ovens make it possible to pleat any textile according to the imagination of the seamstresses. “On a large table, we imprison the fabric between two pleated cardboard looms, we roll it up as tightly as possible and we bake in an oven. For example, it takes an hour at a temperature of 85°C for tulle. Then we leave dry and we discover the result the next morning by unrolling the box”, explains Vivien Dillensinger, 30 years old. The young man was a landscaper in town hall, but his passion for fashion led him into the house, even though he knew nothing about pleating. Here too, transmission is crucial. “I arrived eight years ago on an internship after the Atelier Chardon Savard design school and there was no one left to teach me this technique, remembers Marion Moinier, business development manager at Lognon. I train in present of the apprentices, it is the only means of transmitting this heritage know-how.”
Over the past eighteen months, 90 people have been recruited in the various entities that make up 19M (Lesage, Maison Michel, Eres, Paloma, etc.). In an awareness-raising approach, the place is open to the general public via the Café du 19M and the Gallery, which exhibits the work of these houses in a multidisciplinary way. Embroidery, feathers and pleating workshops are also offered free of charge on Wednesdays and Saturdays. A whole art… to pass on!