The Master Touch of Lesage, Embroidery for French Fashion
White, Palmer. The Master Touch of Lesage, Embroidery for French Fashion. First French Edition. 1987. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. Text is in English.
The saying goes that behind every good man is a woman. A corollary is that behind every great 20th Century Parisian courtier, there was the same woman—Marie-Louise Lesage—and also her family and the embroidery firm they founded, the house of Lesage. Working for Worth, Vionnet, Schiaparelli, Dior, Balmain, Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Lagerfeld, and Lacroix, Lesage embroidered most the iconic haute couture of the last century. This monograph celebrates Lesage and its extraordinary creations. It includes hundreds of illustrations, juxtaposing photographic images with fashion illustration, both in color and b & w. This edition published by Editions du Chêne preceded the more common First American Edition by one year.
“The prime quality of the embroiderer resides in his intuition, for he has to sense the orientation of a fashion to come, preparing, as it were, the layette of an infant, yet to be born. He has to both anticipate a couturier’s idea and follow it.”
--François Lesage