Marvelling at Parisian couture embroidery

I recently had a delightful week in Paris on a fashion and textile tour. The tour was designed for sewists who make their own patterns for the clothes they’re going to sew (or who want to start doing that). So I was expecting plenty of delightful dressmaking inspiration. What I wasn’t expecting was to also enjoy a vast amount of couture embroidery inspiration!

I took so many photos for future reference and inspiration! And I thought you might enjoy the inspiration too.

Or simply to join me in marvelling at the amazing work!

So sit back and relax, while I share some of the couture embroidery that left me with major heart eyes!

Visiting the couture houses

I’d expected that Paris would be a great place for fashion inspiration and expected to be able to find exciting exhibitions in the fashion and design leaning museums. However I hadn’t realised that some of the couture houses have their own galleries with regularly changing exhibitions. What a treat!

We visited the Dior gallery and Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) museum, which both blew me away. As well as being able to see some of their couture creations up close, we got to see the office/studio of Dior and YSL as they would have been.

The museum and gallery buildings were also a part of the attraction as you get to see the famous staircases and rooms where the latest collections were shown off. You can’t help but imagine the glamorous models gliding down those staircases in the gorgeous outfits we got to see.

One of the things I particularly appreciated about both houses was that they clearly felt that acknowledging the wider teams they worked with was important. So for the embroidered pieces, the house that had done the embroidery was usually listed.

Gallery Dior

If you have any kind of interest in fashion or dressmaking, I would highly recommend a visit to La Galerie Dior.

Here’s a snapshot of the delights we saw.

A cream strapless dress on a dress form. The dress has embroidery all over it, most noticeably green leaves on the skirt.

Having done a little bit of silk shading embroidery myself, I dread to think how long it would have taken to create the embroidery on this dress!

(I could actually say that for every outfit to follow too. So I’ll save you from that and just say it the once!)

It was a haute couture special creation from 1956 that was worn by Françoise Arnoul in the film Paris, Palace Hotel.

A dress with a fitted bodice and thin straps and a long flared skirt. The bodice is covered with colourful embroidery. The skirt has stripes of colourful embroidery and stripes of the base black fabric.

I was astounded when I realised that the base fabric of this dress is pure black and all the colourful stripes are embroidered! A fine example of couture embroidery indeed!

It’s a 2022 haute couture runway dress by Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior. The dress is black silk jacquard with the colourful ‘mille-fleurs’ embroidered by the Chanakya ateliers.

Close up of heavily embroidered dress showing the embroidery on the bodice and the stipes of embroidery on the skirt.

A black military vest that's been heavily embroidered in shades of brown and cream showing a pair of eyes in the centre with fur/hair radiating out.

Proving that embroidered embellishment isn’t just the preserve of women’s evening wear is this spectacular men’s military vest.

A 2019 runway piece, by Kim Jones for Christian Dior in collaboration with Raymond Pettibon. The vest is wool twill and embroidered by Amal Embroideries studio.

An 18th century inspired coat in a cream fabric that's been heavily embellished with gold and turquoise embroidery.

Taking inspiration from the 18th century for both the cut of the coat and the style of embroidery is this spectacular look.

A 2005 runway piece by John Galliano for Christian Dior, embroidered by the houses of Lesage and Lemarié.

Strapless dress in neutral shades with embroidery all over, some in greens and reds. The background wall is also embroidered to match the dress.

The last Dior piece to share, isn’t just an embroidered dress, but a whole scene with the coordinating embroidered background!

This ensemble was created for a 2021 Miss Dior campaign and worn by Natalie Portman. The embroidery was created in collaboration with the Chanakya ateliers.

Yves Saint Laurent Museum

We were lucky enough to have a private tour of the YSL museum which gave us some delightful insights into the workings of the couture house.

The exhibition at the time of our visit didn’t really feature embroidery as it was focused on colour and form, with a mix of both haute couture and ready to wear pieces. Our guide did however confirm that it was very important to them to fully credit their collaborators and I picked up the embroidery house of Lesage being mentioned a few times.

Here’s a peak into YSL’s studio and some examples of the outfits on display

Inside a design studio. The back wall is covered with bookcases and lots of books. In the foreground there is a women's colour blocked jacket in red, blue, yellow, white and black. To the side of the image is the end of a desk.

Photo of Yves Saint Lauren's desk. The desk has a number of ornaments as well as papers on it. On the wall behind are a number of sketches, photos and samples.

Five jumpsuits from different decades, all in a single colour. From left to right: pink, grey, cream, burgundy, orange.

In the foreground is a white strapless evening gown that has a stripe of black across the top left of the dress and down the centre front. Behind is a white coat with horizontal black stripes and a black evening dress with long sleeves and a flared skirt that has two white godets.

Azzedine Alaïa at Palais Galliera

The exhibition “Azzedine Alaïa, Couturier and Collector” showcases a small selection of the immense (over 20,000 pieces!) couture collection that ‘virtuoso cutter’ Alaïa built up in total secrecy.

It was a truly stunning collection of pieces from a wide range of designers and was presented in a way that gave you a bit of a feel for the history and evolution of haute couture.

And there was embroidery aplenty!

Black couture jacket with embroidery all over it. The bodice is fitted then flares out to knee length. The sleeves are turned up with white ruffles coming out.

This stunning Balenciaga jacket was embroidered by Rébé. It was worn by Barbara Hutton to a masked ball in Venice, 1951.

A sleeveless column dress in white with all over silver embroidery. Around the top of the bodice and skirt the embroidery forms the shape of a series of horses.

This evening dress was appropriately named ‘little horses’. It’s from Madeleine Vionnet’s autumn/winter 1921-22 collection, with the embroidery worked by the house of Lesage.

Short, collarless jacket in blue with gold embroidery of signs of the zodiac and astrological motifs.

There’s so much amazing embroidered detail going on in this jacket that I think you’d spot something new every time you saw it!

It’s from Elsa Schiaperelli’s autumn/winter 1938-39 collection and was possibly worn by Marlène Dietrich in 1938. The embroidery was worked by the house of Lesage.

Taupe long coat with lots of fabric gathered into the sleeves. Down the front of the coat is tone on tone embroidery. The cuffs are also embroidered.

I nearly missed a room that included pieces from the 1800s such as this stunning Charles Frederick Worth coat from around 1890. I think its tone on tone embroidery creates a very elegant look.

The back of a long, sleeveless black evening dress. Across the shoulders and down the dress is heavy silver embroidery.

Then at the end of the exhibition, there was a room with the most recently made pieces of the collection. Such as this Alexander McQueen evening dress from his autumn/winter 2007-08 ready to wear collection.

With my goldwork module of the Royal School of Needlework certificate course coming up next, I’m always on the lookout for goldwork inspiration. And I was quite taken with the fluid effect of the embroidery on this dress. Thankfully the module brief restricts the size of my design, so I won’t get drawn into such a mammoth piece just yet!

Wrapping up this little couture embroidery tour

I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick run through of some of the couture embroidery delights I saw in Paris!

I’ve of course now got lots of ideas of amazing outfits that I want to design, embroider and sew for myself. Let’s not worry about the time to make them, or indeed where I’d actually wear them just yet!

I’m super grateful to Alice Prier of Alice and Co patterns and Jane Taylor of A Maker’s Table for organising and running such a delightful Parisian fashion and textile tour! If such a tour might be of interest to you, I believe they’re planning another one in 2024 and you can sign up for the waitlist here.

Do you have a favourite of the outfits in this post? Or has it inspired any embroidery embellishment ideas for you? I’d love to know in the comments below!

Kaele Pilcher

5 December 2023 at 14:08

Looks like you were on a different Paris Fashion and textile tour to the one I was on…It was get to see things I missed. See you again in February.

Alex
5 December 2023 at 18:44

Hi Kaele! With the amount of time that I spend thinking about embroidery, I can’t help but be drawn to it when I see it! 😀