Haute Couture Embroidery

This practical step-by-step guide to haute couture embroidery covers everything from machine and hand stitching, to tambour beading, goldwork and monogramming. Whether you are interested in adding monogrammed initials to your favourite bathrobe, stitching a flower on your favourite jacket, adding sparkling beads to a new dress or creating a goldwork embellishment, Fashion Embroidery teaches you how to add a unique touch to your clothes. In this beautifully illustrated book, Jessica Pile, the Production Director at Hand & Lock embroidery, explores the intricate techniques used in fashion embroidery. With hand-drawn designs, catwalk photographs and step-by-step guides, this book is perfect for beginners looking to personalise their own clothes, as well as more experienced embroiderers who want to apply new techniques to different fabrics. Beginning with an inspirational overview of the fashion industry, Jessica looks at examples of embroideries and embellishments by a variety of couturiers, including Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Hardy Amies and Burberry. The book then demonstrates the basics of three main techniques – goldwork, tambour beading and embroidery stitches including silk shading, satin and stem stitch. In do-it-yourself projects, Jessica first helpfully explains the basics of materials; she teaches you how to pick the right fabric, what tools to use, where to source materials, what types of wire or beads to use and terminology. Taking influences from existing couture designs, she then shows you how to execute these learned techniques onto your own clothes. This book is perfect for fashion students, textile artists, and those who want a more unique look to their clothes.

The definitive monograph on the most luxurious and illustrious Haute Couture embroidery house in the world, featuring specially commissioned photography of Maison Lesage’s historic creations. The most prestigious Parisian Haute Couture artisans, Maison Lesage has collaborated with the biggest names in fashion, from Chanel, Schiaparelli, and Yves Saint Laurent, to Cristobal Balenciaga, Valentino, and Alexander McQueen. Founded in 1924, when the Lesage family bought the eminent firm of Michonet (then a supplier to such fashion legends as the House of Worth), Maison Lesage has created exceptional embroidery motifs—often requiring hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of precise beadwork—for star fashion designers for decades. Perhaps best known today for the masterpieces it creates for Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel collections, the house was bought by Chanel in 2002 as part of its Paraffection group to ensure the survival of the house’s unique history and extraordinary skills. Illustrated with specially commissioned photography of the house’s historic creations and illuminated with texts by Patrick Mauries, who has written extensively on Chanel, Maison Lesage is both a tribute to exceptional craftsmanship and a journey through more than one hundred years of fashion at its most sumptuous and inventive. This book will be coveted by anyone interested in luxury fashion.

The role of the Lesage family from their Paris debut, with designs for Vionnet, Schiaparelli, and Dior.

A delicate craft that has been handed down for thousands of years, bead embroidery was popular among the aristocrats in China's imperial courts and is an important part of modern haute couture, wedding dresses, and other accessories.A step-by-step guide to 25 unique embroidery designs, Bead Embroidery Chinese Style incorporates traditional Chinese design elements, including landscape paintings, bird and flower motifs, and famous poems. Projects are both beautiful and useful, and are simple enough for embroidery beginners.Readers will learn about:•The different bead embroidery tools, techniques, and materials•Over a dozen embroidery stitches for single-bead, multi-bead, free stitches, layered stitches, and more•Small-scale embroidery projects, including jewelry, coasters, pouches, and silk scarves•More advanced projects, including makeup bags, lamp covers, and wall art.Author Han Yu is one of the world's leading experts on bead embroidery. She studied at the prestigious Ecole Lesage, part of Chanel's Metiers d'art, in Paris, and regularly produces pieces for Shanghai and Paris Fashion Weeks, state dignitaries, and celebrities.

Published to accompany an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute, December 1995-March 1996. A lovely presentation of designs that exemplify the rise of haute couture--that is, fashion driven by the artistic expression of the designer rather than by the dictates of clients. The thoroughly captioned selections represent the history of haute couture from its beginings in mid-19th century Paris to the present-day creations of major designers. Tailoring and dressmaking techniques as well as the decoration produced by embroiderers, beaders, lace makers, feather workers, and other craftspeople are discussed in the explanatory text. No bibliography. Distributed by Abrams. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "A powerful debut that proves the threads that interweave our lives can withstand time and any tide, and bind our hearts forever."—Susanna Kearsley, New York Times bestselling author of Belleweather and The Vanished Days A historical novel inspired by true events, Kelli Estes's brilliant and atmospheric debut is a poignant tale of two women determined to do the right thing, highlighting the power of our own stories. The smallest items can hold centuries of secrets... While exploring her aunt's island estate, Inara Erickson is captivated by an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. The truth behind the silk sleeve dated back to 1886, when Mei Lien, the lone survivor of a cruel purge of the Chinese in Seattle found refuge on Orcas Island and shared her tragic experience by embroidering it. As Inara peels back layer upon layer of the centuries of secrets the sleeve holds, her life becomes interwoven with that of Mei Lein. Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth that will shake her family to its core—and force her to make an impossible choice. Should she bring shame to her family and risk everything by telling the truth, or tell no one and dishonor Mei Lien's memory? A touching and tender book for fans of Marie Benedict, Susanna Kearsley, and Duncan Jepson, The Girl Who Wrote in Silk is a dual-time period novel that explores how a delicate piece of silk interweaves the past and the present, reminding us that today's actions have far reaching implications. Praise for The Girl Who Wrote in Silk: "A beautiful, elegiac novel, as finely and delicately woven as the title suggests. Kelli Estes spins a spellbinding tale that illuminates the past in all its brutality and beauty, and the humanity that binds us all together." —Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author of The Beekeeper's Ball "A touching and tender story about discovering the past to bring peace to the present." —Duncan Jepson, author of All the Flowers in Shanghai "Vibrant and tragic, The Girl Who Wrote in Silk explores a horrific, little-known era in our nation's history. Estes sensitively alternates between Mei Lien, a young Chinese-American girl who lived in the late 1800s, and Inara, a modern recent college grad who sets Mei Lien's story free." —Margaret Dilloway, author of How to Be an American Housewife and Sisters of Heart and Snow

Creating Couture Embellishment offers a step-by-step guide to manipulating fabric and making and applying a rich variety of embellishments. Chapters cover fabric-manipulation techniques of pleating, quilting, tucking, ruffling, shirring and smocking, as well as the fabrication and application of feathers, beading, embroidery, flowers, decorative ribbons and bows, bias bindings and piping, fringe, braids and passementerie. The heirloom quality created by the insertion or application of lace is also explored. A comprehensive sourcebook of ideas for the student, professional and home sewer alike.