Stories of silk & textile treasures

A belated posting about a fabulous Easter fête that I was invited to by my friend, artist Marie Ducaté. High above the town of Apt, nestled into a cliff is the breathtaking hilltop village of Saignon (pronounced Sen-yon), surrounded by a patchwork of vines, lavender, cherry orchards and olive groves and inhabitated by a wonderful mixture of local paysans and creative souls.

Behind the doors of a majestic Maison Bourgeois, called Un Chambre avec Vue, lies a magical space. A rambling maison de Maitre, this is home to Pierre & Kamila Regent and it functions as an art gallery, artist residency and chambre d’hotes (b&b).

Every corner of this home is pulsing with creative energy and although this was my first invitation I had heard all about the famous Polish Easter traditional party that hostess Kamila (originally Polish) throws every year.

The wonderful sounds of an accordian coaxed us outside into a beautiful orchard. A hidden garden oasis in the middle of Saignon where we bathed in the first rays of warm spring sunshine – even the Mistral died down for a few hours.

Colour, glorious colour …. and cake!

It seemed a shame to cut into the incredible almond topped cakes – but my inner gourmande decided otherwise and the risk paid off – trop bon!

 An excellent spot for some Easter Sunday people watching – if I do say so myself!

More images tomorrow from inside the home! A bientot!

I just had to share the most delicious feature from the New Yorker by Jessamyn Hatcher about the discovery of a wonderful cache of twenty one Callot Soeurs dresses which lay forgotten in a pile of Louis Vuitton steamer trunks in a store-room of a fifteenth-century Florentine villa.

This wonderful feature brings to life these exquisite time forgotten dresses, once owned by Hortense Mitchell Acton and created by the belle époque French haute-couture designers Callot Soeurs.

“The gowns are in good condition for garments this old. But the diversity of the materials Callot Soeurs employed makes them challenging to preserve. The sequins on two dresses are plagued by “inherent vice”—a degradation of cellulose nitrate. These gowns appear to be melting. Another was stored beneath a dress afflicted with “glass-bead disease.” The chemicals in the beads leached into the mauve fabric of the other dress, ringing it with nebulas faded to magenta. On yet another, tiny satin rosebuds are tearing the tulle hem that they hang from. Most of the gowns are suffering from “memory”—the technical term for wrinkles left in garments by repeated wear.”

“Clothing is different from most other kinds of objects in museums. Garments never lose the imprint of the body that was once inside them; indeed, the chemical reactions between the materials of the garments and the wearer’s body are ongoing. Perspiration, even from a long-ago dance in a Tuscan garden, may continue a hundred years later to oxidize metallic thread, to alter the molecular structure of a fabric.”

“Madeleine Vionnet, one of the most influential and radical designers of the twentieth century, was the sisters’ head seamstress. She ranked them higher than the self-proclaimed King of Fashion, Paul Poiret. “Without the example of the Callot Soeurs,” Vionnet said, “I would have continued to make Fords. It is because of them that I have been able to make Rolls-Royces.””

Read more of the beautiful feature here

I loved her seductive descriptions of the toll that time takes on these beautiful dresses – ‘“inherent vice” and “glass-bead disease” – I’ve finally found a diagnosis for my antique textile affliction.

Detail of blouse, 1905-15 | detail of evening dress by Callot Soeurs, 1910-14 both from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

So I think you must know by now just how proud I am to be part of the Faure family whose silk and ribbon factory celebrated their 150th anniversary in 2014.

Stepping on to the ‘Jacquard metier’ floor for the first time, is a memory I will never forget for as long as I live.

The clac – clac – clac of the navettes weaving back and forth is hypnotic and utterly seductive, drawing you into the belly of where all this beauty is woven.

The passementiers, many of whom are highly skilled fifth generation artisans, comb through the thousands of threads with a wonderful combination of delicacy and immediacy that reminds me of a concert harpist making music.

It is intoxicating to watch these women and men, deep in concentration, a secret language binding them to become one with the majestic 150 year old jacquard metiers that tower above and around them.

There is poetry everywhere you look. Unassuming bundles of silk on bobbins with handwritten notes attached call to me.

New technology stands shoulder to shoulder with beautiful ancient restored metiers, mirroring the traditions and knowledge that have been passed down and evolving from one generation to the next.

 It is a love affair, an orchestra of silk, an altar to beauty and heritage.

You can visit the official website of Julien Faure here

 

Les Petits Bonheurs series is back and I am excited to introduce you to this weeks artist, Lucie de Syracuse, whose work I discovered when I visited the wonderful Avignon boutique, Les Plumes de Paon.

I am always drawn to the globe de mariages (and funeraille) which you see less and less often at the brocante so I naturally gravitated to Lucies work when I visited Les Plumes de Paon in Avignon. But it is only on closer inspection that you see that these are not your typical globes and I found myself chuckling into the convex glass of her work. Wickedly dark, humourous, intelligent and with a wonderful combination of flea market finds and found objects – I knew I had to reach out and find out more about the maker.

Before you begin….I do recommend that you press play. Lucie sent me one of her own music compositions, Berlin, and I have been playing it on loop. I am listening to it now as I create her portrait and I think it is just a perfect accompaniment to her answers.

Enjoy!

Lucie de Syracuse was born in 1981. She initially studied contemporary literature and developed a particular fondness for the 19th century literature of Gerard de Nerval and Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, whose work often speaks of rebellion and ecstasy. Through her studies she discovered the world of romantic literature, books adorned with grotesque and fantastical drawings from such rare illustrators as Johannot and Nanteuil and these works continue to inspire her art work today.

Lucie is a passionate flea market truffler. She rummages in basements, attics, antiques markets and junk shops where she is drawn to all the items seemingly unwanted, and found unworthy of the traditional antiquaire. In particular, Lucie is drawn to broken, bizarre toys, dried flowers and ephemera from the past that comes together to create her unusual work.

She builds – in her own words “inside of bulging glass frames, poetically strange pieces. A strange familiar, map of a forgotten journey, one which puts the eye in the middle of a fantastical game. Frames where unsettling, dark powers are at work; where fragments and broken pieces aim to question the splitting of our thought, of our memory. Frames where the sublime and the grotesque meet up in all the spaces left open to imagination.”

About her path to becoming the artist she is today:

“I’ve never been to art school, I studied French literature for six years at University, with a focus on black romantism and its many influences on 19th century painters, illustrators and etchers. I was been hugely in inspired by the symbolists painters such as Gustave Moreau and his tatooed Salomé, true figure of the femme fatale, and the pre-raphaelites, especially John Waterhouse. The emotion, the intriguing beauty of these women overwhelmed me.

I have always loved drawing and sketching in order to memorise and through my studies I learnt the skill of observing.”

“It was while studying the writing of Gerard de Nerval, Charles Nodier and ETA Hoffmann that I found out about Tony Johannot and Celestin Nauteuil’s work, those two illustrators produced drawings for many of  the 19th century authors both French and foreign. One particular illustrator who hugely inspires me is Johannot, and his work on the first French translation of ‘The Tales of Hoffman’. It’s fascinating because he had both a very ‘classical’ pen and one for the grotesque as well, a bit like in the Goya’s Caprices.

Nauteuil’s work borrows from the fantasy world, haunted by images of witches, owls, enchanted vegetation, gracious figures and grotesques masks. It’s rather like a comic book illustration, where each of his drawings is separated not by straight lines but by a multitude of twigs which grow around each of them.”

On her love for antique, vintage and found objects:

“I’ve always had a taste for vintage clothes, old radios, and old bands since I was thirteen years old. I used to keep everything I found in the street, from vintage psychedelic suitcases to sailors pictures, books, vinyl records, pieces of fabric. I also kept little hideous vitrines where I created little vignettes using my treasures.

I was really made aware of my collecting habits about 5 years ago, at the time I was living in the heart of the St Michel area where every morning around 6am, I would head out to gather objects at the flea market. When I later moved house – it was then that I really started to work with all these found objects.”

Do you remember the first item you found at the flea market that you really fell hard for?

“Yes, I was in the Lot-et-Garonne, and I bought a very odd object, I had taken it in my hands, was about to put it back and walk off but this tiny “globe”, by that I mean a domed-glass-frame, stayed in the palm of my hand, I was fascinated. Inside I could see some moss, a post card of Lourdes, the back of the frame was all crinkled and sodden. It was 6 years ago, I kept it for a year before opening it. Another find that I still remember clearly was a very damaged painting of Salomé holding the head of St Jean Baptiste’s in his hands.

There’s a painting picturing two women on a river bank, there’s a child and his dog, far off are the fishermen on their frail boats, everywhere are the trees, lots of vegetation and a monument with an unreadable latin mark. I get caught by the colour harmony, the blue, the old pink, the green and the shining light.”

Is there anything that you just can’t imagine parting with, a piece of jewellery, a painting, a photograph, a piece of antique textile or a special globe?

“I actually keep two of my very first “globe” creations, they were made straight at the very begining. I dont want to let them go because they are the witnesses of the begining of my work .

Where Lucie does her making:

“I don’t have a workshop, in the true meaning of a dedicated room for work, I work in my living-room which after all the space my collections take up – doesn’t leave much room for a living-room.”

“I have objects exposed on shelves, in little ‘vitrines’ or displays or hanging on the walls, in drawers, which I actually tend to forget when they’re in drawers, basically they’re all around me.”

On her creative process:

“While gathering pieces , I don’t look for a special theme because you never find what you’re looking for, the objects find me, I join the dots later, at the workshop.”

“Sometimes, I start to work straight away with some pieces, others I keep two – three years before starting anything.”

Chez Lucie – At home with Lucie:

“The place I am happiest is always when I am in my living-room/workshop, painting, deep into music, otherwise under my sheets where I like to doze.”

“My favourite spot is the table in front of my living-room window, a space full of light and open to the banana trees of the garden, the cat often keeps me company there.”

“As I was studying I started collecting antique books from the 19th century with beautiful etchings and lovely bindings, it’s still a great aesthetic pleasure to leaf through them, they are the secret asylum of my imagination.”

On what inspires her:

Writers, musicians and artists including: Christian Bobin, Frédéric Clément, Félicien Rhops, Fernand Khnopff, Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Adolph Mossa, Arthur Rackham, Niki de St Phalle, Odilon Redon, Magritte, Ernest Pignon Ernest, Tinguely, Boltanski, Chagall, Björk, Blur, T-Rex,The Kinks, Elliot Smith, Julien Pras, Bigott, Leon Newars and the Ghost Band, the Black Keys…

I often listen to music while working.

On creative block and working through it:

“When I stumble across something , I play with my cat, I play the piano, I do something else and then I get back at it. Usually it works.”

On running a creative business:

“I’d rather collect from flea-markets, yard-sales, and antiques fairs. Strolling and looking is a very important part of the process. This is where my work take roots.

I sell my work through the artshows I attend to throughout the year. Lately I had an exhibition at the Musée de la Création Franche, in Bègles. I also sell online, and of course I have a few pieces in a shop in Avignon called « Les Plumes du Paon ».

You can visit Lucies website here and her facebook page here 

 

Now with the website for The French Muse finished and live, I’ve dared to step inside my neglected atelier to give it a spring clean and a bit of TLC.

I hung these incredible 1800s lace and tulle curtains, which are pretty much ‘dans leur jus’ after 120 years of use but the way the light shines through them is just beyond pretty. I found them at the brocante and might have muffled a teeny squeal of joy when the dealer sold them for a euro.

One of my favourite finds of recent weeks was a series of rusty tins all with funny titles on them, the real treasure lay inside. Skeins of the tiniest jewel toned steel beads.

Another Sunday not so long ago, I wandered around the stands with my friend Corey Amaro, just watching her brocante is simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying, she has such an expert eye that she quickly snaps up the good stuff before you even have the time to scan the table and utter ‘bonjour’. I did happen to pick up some charming trinkets and at home when I put them all together I allowed myself to imagine all these items in the handbag of beautiful women from the 20s. Her lipstick case still smudged with red inside, a photograph of her lover and love tokens.

My favourite finds go into this shelf on my desk so I can look and admire them as I work. To the left are some of my all time favourite ribbons made in late 1800s and to the right are rolls of beautiful hand printed wallpaper that I hope to use one day in our new home.

Something about the texture and pattern that the real gold thread makes against the french typeface makes my heart beat that much faster.

Inside another of my magical tins, real metal sequins, blown glass bugle beads and tiny stainless steel beads, just beautiful

I’ve cleared a space on a shelf for my antique textiles, some vintage Souleaido prints, an 1800s boutis, art deco velvet, gold trimmed vestment robes and lace. Delicious to see be able to see them and not have them hidden away in a drawer.

A bientot!

Just on foot of the beautiful images from Raf Simon’s Christian Dior show featuring our familys haute couture grosgrain ribbons, I discovered this wonderful film which gives us a delicious glimpse into the making of one dress, “Look #53”. I loved discovering the haute couture ateliers, from the dyers (teinturiers) to the ateliers Gérard Lognon (plissers des tissus)

Enjoy

Wow I am just swelling with pride for our family ribbon company. Suzy Menkes just wrote a wonderful review of his show which featured ribbons from Julien Faure.

Suzi Menkes writes “…As the models walked down the scaffolding ramp set, you could tell that each stripe, each decoration –  were works of art.”

Here are some close ups that were not in the Suzy Menkes feature – they show in detail how beautiful the ribbon detailing is on the dresses and skirts. wow wow wow, still beaming about this!

This past weekend we were invited to lunch in my friend Joannas house, I double, triple checked – “are you sure you don’t prefer that we leave the kids at home with a babysitter?”, surtout pas – Joanna insisted the more the merrier. I hadn’t seen Joanna since this past summer when she showed me around the old cave / garage adjoining her home, that she was planning on transforming into her studio and showroom.

It was a ruin, albeit a very beautiful 13th Century ruin with great bones but if you had handed this space to me I wouldn’t have known where to begin.

On Saturday, we stepped through the door of her new studio and it took our breath away.

Such beauty, everywhere.

Incredible high vaulted ceilings, Joannas beautiful hand printed textiles offsetting the rugged stone walls – my heart swelled up with admiration. It is one thing to be creative and quite another to have such incredible vision and see it through to make this type of a space.

I am just so excited for Joanna and all the making that will happen here. It’s the kind of place you just need to sit in for 5 minutes and feel energised.

Her art and creative spirit is in everything

Joanna has created all of the textiles used in the space including these wonderful black on linen, hand printed textiles that you see above on the cushions and upholstery.

This video blew my mind, I can’t quite get my head around how the science of 3D printing works – but wow the implications for fashion and design are very very exciting. To see them dusting off that block and unveiling their 3D garment with no assembly necessary is just fascinating.

“Nervous System has created the first dress with Kinematics, their unique 4D printing system that creates complex, foldable forms composed of articulated modules. The Museum of Modern Art has acquired the dress along with the software that created it for their permanent collection. Composed of thousands of interlocking components, the dress was 3D printed as a single folded piece at the Shapeways factory in New York City and required no assembly. This was made possible by Nervous Systems’ Kinematics system which combines design generation, customization, and simulation to enable the production of large flexible structures by 3D printing.”

Here are some of their initial, ‘smaller’ jewellery project designs.

And a few hours after discovering Nervous System I read an article via Image magazine regarding an Irish tech and design start up, Love & Robots created by three sisters, Emer, Kate and Aoibheann O’Daly. Using 3d printing they have created a design brand that “invites the customer to sit at the drawing table”.  I loved browsing through their gorgeous site and can’t wait to see what products they add to to their line!

You can read more about them in this Image.ie interview