Lesage x Aristide

Participatory embroidery workshop
le19M presents Lesage × Aristide (Barraud)

To mark Lesage’s centenary, le19M invited the Maison d’art’s embroidery workshop to collaborate with the artist Aristide (Aristide Barraud). Together they created Murmuration, a monumental drawing depicting a swarm of hundreds of embroidered starlings. Every winter, thousands of starlings migrate from one continent to another, creating perfectly synchronised ballets in the sky. The artist connects this natural phenomenon of symbiosis with the fragmentation of contemporary society.

Throughout 2024, the different sections of embroidery that make up Murmuration journey from one city to another. At each stopover, the birds come to life thanks to the embroidery gestures of the audience, guided by the expert hands of the art craftspeople. After an initial stopover in Marseille in May, the starlings set off on a migration to Paris in June, then to Dakar in July before settling in Venice in September for Homo Faber (a day celebrating craftsmanship). Each embroidery stitch becomes an extra note in a collective and contemplative symphony, whose result is presented in the exhibition “Lesage. Hundred years of fashion and decoration” at la Galerie du 19M, until 5 January.

Lesage
This year, Lesage celebrates a century of exceptional expertise in embroidery and weaving, serving haute couture and fashion houses with the most prestigious clients in the decoration industry.
In 1924, Albert and Marie-Louise Lesage took over the workshop of the embroiderer Michonet. Founded in 1858, this workshop provided the first great names in the history of haute couture, including Charles Frederick Worth, Madame Paquin, or Madeleine Vionnet, whose assistant in charge of embroidery was none other than Marie-Louise Lesage.
The inventor of new techniques (“vermicelli warp thread” or the shaded system that produces blended colours), Maison Lesage soon became renowned for its avant-garde designs.
In 1949, on the death of his father, François Lesage, then aged 20, took over the management of the Maison. He worked with some of the greatest fashion designers, including Cristóbal Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent and CHANEL. In 2002, Maison Lesage became part of CHANEL’s Métiers d’Art, and has continued to work independently with renowned fashion designers.

le19M and its Galerie
At the initiative of CHANEL, le19M is a place of heritage and creation committed to passing on the decoration and fashion Métiers d’art. Twelve Maisons and an embroidery school form a unique community of 700 craftspeople and experts serving the studios of the most prestigious fashion houses and interior design studios, as well as young talents.
Set like a link between Paris and Aubervilliers, le19M is also home to la Galerie du 19M. This modular space stands up for the values of arts and crafts and showcases the emerging creative scene to everyone – schoolchildren, students, professionals, enthusiasts, families, amateurs or the simply curious. Its free, playful, multi-disciplinary programme includes exhibitions, hands-on workshops, lectures, as well as educational and cultural.