Francois Lesage, Master Couture Embroiderer, Dead At 82.
Couture has lost one of its great masters this week.
Francois Lesage, a Frenchman who inherited an embroidery business and built it up to be the main supplier of embroidery to virtually every major designer, has died at age 82.
Lesage worked with some of the greatest names in fashion, but the reason for his glowing obituaries in the New York Times and Women’s Wear Daily isn’t his connection. His atelier was one of the last hand-embroidery workshops in the world, making enormous and complex embroideries for Alexander McQueen, Schiaparelli and Yves Saint Laurent.
So influential was he that if you’ve ever admired a piece of embroidery or extensive beadwork on a couture piece, chances are it either came from Lesage himself or from somebody trained in his workshop.
He was born in 1929, and the New York Times reports that his parents owned an embroidery studio which he commandeered and made into the Maison Lesage. Embroidery is still one of the mainstays of couture, since it’s extremely difficult to manufacture and must be done by hand. A single mistake can mean the ruin of a garment, and gowns can be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So few embroidery experts now survive that embroidery is gradually disappearing from couture collections, however. It’s an extremely intensive art and takes years of training and artistic practise, and young artisans are keener to work with laser-cuts and more modern techniques than an embroidery needle and a hoop.
Lesage worked with every material currently used, from silk to pure gold thread (notoriously difficult to work with), and has had exhibitions and a specialist furniture line.
His atelier was purchased by Chanel a decade ago – but with his death, it’s uncertain what will happen next.
Image: A piece of Francois Lesage embroidery.
Amy Winehouse was perhaps more influential in music than in fashion – her 60s-style beehive and tattoos went out of fashion as she herself went downhill- but people still love a piece of Amy memorabilia.
Six months after the singer’s death, the dress she wore on the cover of the album Back To Black has sold at auction.
The price? A staggering 43,200 pounds.
The polka-dot chiffon dress was bought by the Museo de la Moda in Spain, but the overwhelming price tag won’t go to enriching anybody’s purse.
Instead, the dress’s auctioneer, its designer Disaya, donated the entire proceeds to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, a charity set up after the singer died of alcohol-related causes and heart failure this year.
The auction on everybody’s lips, though, is another dead celebrity’s wares – the famous jewellery collection of Elizabeth Taylor, on the block soon at Christie’s
Images are slowly being released from the jewellery catalogue, and it’s emerged that the star’s famed collection was as extensive and opulent as was always rumoured.
However, getting a piece for yourself might not be an option this Christmas – unless you have a spare million burning a hole in your pocket…
Image: Amy Winehouse on Back To Black.
It’s often difficult to combine doing good with fashion, and the festive season is no exception.
However, there’s big news in the world of ethical jewellery, and Rescu. is here to bring you the scoop- and the best charitable fashion gifts for 2011.
Fonderie47 (link to https://www.fonderie47.com/) has grabbed headlines for making earrings out of AK47s – yes, the assault rifles. The non-profit jewellery company takes combat material and makes it into beautiful pieces mixed with gold, by melting down the materials. It’s a wonderful gift for the woman with a conscience.
And, as Fashionista reported, Coco Rocha, the supermodel we all have a crush on, has collaborated with Senhoa to produce a line of jewellery (link: https://www.senhoa.org/cocorocha/) which benefits Cambodian victims of human trafficking. It’s made by the girls themselves.
The place to go for fashion itself? People Tree – the line which specialises in ethical clothing, and has achieved high-end cred via a collaboration with Emma Watson – is always a good bet for chic, simple, ethical pieces (link: https://www.peopletree.co.uk/).
Or, for the edgier woman, there’s Edun, the fashion business started by Bono’s wife Ali Hewson. It’s designed to foster trade links with Africa, and fuses looking good with being good in an extremely forward-looking way (link: https://edun.com/). Sign us up!
Image: Edun’s latest line.
It seems that mother Victoria Beckham isn’t the only fashionista in the Beckham family.
Harper Seven, the designer’s fourth child with David Beckham, is their only girl- and her wardrobe is apparently rivalling her mother’s.
The bub, who’s barely a few months old, has been sporting the ultimate in designer baby accessories.
According to her mother, she ‘loved’ her first trip to Prada, though she was carried and spent most of the time sucking her thumb.
Designer clothes for celebrity babies have been a hot-button issue this year, with Rachel Zoe admitting that her infant son’s wardrobe is possibly more extensive and expensive than her own. Harper herself made headlines when her mother paraded her through Heathrow in a pair of 50 pound tights and a designer dress. She’s also been seen in a wide parade of hair accessories, despite only having a very small amount of hair.
(Apparently the latter is David’s fault – he’s told interviewers that he loves buying them, as he’s never had the chance before.)
Beckham has revealed that her next clothing line will possibly be for children, and that it will be inspired by her daughter.
Would you dress your baby in designer clothes, even if she were to grow out of them in two weeks?
Image: Victoria and Harper Beckham.
