The Couture Crafts Moving Into Our Homes
From embroidery and passmenterie to hours of beading by hand, the specialist crafts of haute couture are finding a new home in the world’s most beautiful interiors. By NATASHA BIRD
Haute Couture has always made a virtue of painstaking craftsmanship. Ever since Charles Frederick Worth established what is recognized as the first true couture house in Paris in 1858, it has been defined by the possibilities of studious human work. Alongside the drama of a gown’s debut, is usually also a celebration of specialist hands: embroidering, beading, hand painting, appliquéing, pleating and constructing, for sometimes hundreds or even thousands of hours.
These days, whether it is Maison Margiela’s Artisanal collections under John Galliano, the reimagined couture of Balenciaga, Valentino Garavani’s Roman ateliers, Alaïa’s beautiful construction or the elaborate surface work of Elie Saab, every contemporary couture house continues to ascribe value to the time, process and idiosyncrasies of how pieces are lovingly and delicately made.
And that mindset is steadily increasing its footprint in the most luxurious homes too. The boundaries between high fashion and high living are dissolving, as we ebb away from the shores of mass-production and too much coordination, back towards bespoke pieces, artisanal textiles and distinct evidence of human labor.
THE HOUSE OF LYRIAGlafira floral-print linen cushion
SIX THE RESIDENCENobilis Cluny velvet-jacquard and wood pouf
L'OBJETGrand Tour set of four gold-plated porcelain dessert plates
The fabric of fashion
“Clothing is how we present ourselves to the world; our homes are how we present ourselves to ourselves,” says Daisy Brown, co-founder of Six The Residence, who began her career in fashion before moving into tailor-made interiors. “Working in bespoke furniture showed me how much the language of fashion, proportion, material, the finish of a seam, translates into the spaces we live in.”
This relationship between couture and interiors is hardly new. Embroidery, as one of the most pertinent ways to display art across the two realms, once adorned both the gowns of Charles Frederick Worth and the beds of Versailles, while passementerie – an elaborate way of making decorative tassels, cords and fringes – is a similarly dual discipline. “Historically, passementiers supplied the same braids, cords and buttons to dressmakers and upholsterers,” explains Elizabeth Ashdown, artist and author of The Art of Passementerie. “The vocabulary is still shared — think of the braid edging a classic tweed jacket, or the frogging on military-inspired tailoring.”
Today, those shared techniques are being celebrated on a vast and more ornamental scale in the home. London-based textile artist Aiveen Daly works across fine embroidery, beadwork, silk and sculptural leather to create bespoke artworks for private residences, prestigious hotels and superyachts. Her work borrows from the specialist techniques of the couture atelier, transforming embellishment into gorgeous architectural surfaces. “To me, a couture approach is about rare, meticulous craftsmanship that cannot be replicated,” she says. “It’s the art of layering heritage techniques — from gold work and fine hand-embroidery to three-dimensional leather sculpting — to create breathtaking surfaces that haven’t been seen before.”
SIX THE RESIDENCEFringed velvet pouf
TEKLAChecked wool throw
GOHAR WORLDBow and button-detailed striped cotton-blend tablecloth
MISSONI HOMEAmalfi striped cotton-blend cushion
The rarest art forms
The skills required for these creations are becoming increasingly precious. Passementerie appears on the Heritage Crafts Red List of Endangered Crafts, and Ashdown is one of just three people who are still designing and making it by hand in the UK. The techniques involved are painstakingly traditional: tassel moulds wrapped by hand, cords manually twisted and intricate braids and fringes woven on special looms.
Just because they borrow from time-worn knowledge, however, does not mean their expression is old-fashioned. “A modern piece of passmenterie might use a bold, unexpected colorway, a pared-back form or a playful scale, so it sits as comfortably in a minimalist apartment as in a country house,” says Ashdown, who describes passementerie as “jewelry for the home”. A tassel on a cabinet key, she suggests, is the equivalent of an earring completing an outfit.
At Six The Residence, traditional upholstery techniques are put to similarly contemporary use. Each pouffe is made in the brand’s British workshop, from its wooden frame to its hand-applied trimmings. The bouclé pouffe with fringe combines irregular loops of off-white bouclé with substantial bullion fringe, while an exclusive gold-velvet iteration has been created just for NET-A-PORTER.
“At the time it was designed, bouclé was everywhere, and most fringing on the market was fine and delicate. I wanted something with more weight and presence,” says Brown. “Monochrome allows the eye to read material rather than colour.”
This meticulous attention to material and finishing is crucial to Ralph Lauren Home too, which has translated the fashion house’s signature aesthetic into interiors since it launched in 1983. The house produces sumptuously textured upholstery, beautifully worked leather furniture and layered textiles, which all speak to the value of handcrafting and creating pieces that will stand the test of time.
LA DOUBLEJFloral-printed fringed-trimmed cushion
RALPH LAUREN HOMEPreston mini woven leather and glass hurricane candle holder
SIX THE RESIDENCEFringed bouclé pouf
MISSONI HOMEMontgomery fringed striped recycled wool-blend throw
The personal touch
As well as their decorative appeal, these crafts also offer something that can be difficult to find in a lot of contemporary design: true individuality. “Social media has made so much of design feel homogenised and instantaneous,” says Daly. “Our clients want something deeply personal — an artwork or architectural installation crafted entirely by hand that exists nowhere else in the world.”
One of her recent commissions, Meditative Meadow, makes the point beautifully. Created for a Brazilian couple’s Miami residence, the monumental sculptural artwork incorporates hand-worked flora, fauna and tropical motifs native to the small Brazilian town where the couple first met. The result is an elaborate decorative installation for the home and also a seriously intimate incarnation of their shared history.
That same thing can be achieved on a smaller scale too. As Ashdown observes, the most interesting homes “aren’t bought in a weekend from one catalog”. Commissioning lengths of hand-woven braids in colorways that have meaning to you, a tablecloth embroidered with a motif of special significance, or even just a bespoke pouffe for a favorite suntrap, are all ways of adding luxurious, charming character.
“Some of the most beautiful homes I have encountered are not to my own taste at all,” says Brown, “But there is a clear point of view behind them, and I think conviction, more than any particular style, is what makes a space truly interesting.”
The great couture houses have spent generations honing in on what makes something both valuable and utterly individual. And maybe it’s still true today that the difference between an exquisitely embroidered gown and a beautifully finished home is little more than a change of canvas.
L'OBJETFortuny Rue Jacob gold-tone canvas-jacquard frame
LA DOUBLEJPrinted linen tablecloth
NATALIA CRIADOSilver-plated and stone bowl
