It was such sad news to recieve this week that Francois Lesage had passed away. Francois Lesage ran the very famous embroidery house in Paris, which has provided embroidery for decades for the most exclusive Couture houses such as Dior, Givenchy, Balenciaga and Christian Lacroix.
Lesage ran his workshop till his death and had nearly 50 embrioderers working there. Jobs could require up to 500 hours of work, like the famous Jean Paul Gaultier’s evening dress from 1998 collection, Leopard Evening dress in taffeta and embroidery required close to 500 hours in embroidery alone. Amazing and stunning work.
Lesage was in 2002 bought by Chanel, so it will carry on in the future, as long as the couture houses still require the exquisit and specialised work for their collections.
This dress i saw at Victoria & Albert Museum London It was part of the exhibition about the New Look. Lesage did this emboidery for Lanvin in 1957. it was truly stunning, the detail in the embroidery was breath taking.
Before his death, Lesage said: