customers. The first cut of the gown or dress was fitted to these forms, which were perfect replicas of the customer’s torso. The almost-finished product was fitted to the customer herself.
And that, Sam knew from Jean Ruiz’s briefing, was only the beginning. The process went on at least three fittings more—the meticulous altering whereby the creation was made to fit the customer’s body an infinitesimal fraction of an inch here, another there, until the customer and the fitter both knew it was perfect. More than perfect—if the fitter wasn’t satisfied, the client kept coming back for more adjustments until she was. The finished product was one a woman could move in, breathe in and live in with reasonable comfort, aware that it was a work of art that made the wearer a work of art, too.
You’re going to find, Jean Ruiz had told her, that the French respect couture clothes so much that the secondhand shops in Paris put big signs in the window that say: “A real Chanel.” Or “A real Balenciaga.” Even when they’re ratty enough to send to Goodwill.
Strangely, the Maison Louvel’s workroom looked as though it were filling an order for a funeral. The tables were filled with black silk faille, black tissue crepe, sheer black organdy, floating panels, drapes, pieces of long sleeves, and bodices with high necks. A slither of white satin fell across a chair. A curious mix, but then the whole place was curious.
Sophie appeared at the doorway with a hazy smile. “Come, you must see zis,” she announced.
In a small room beyond the atelier were antique wooden frames like old-fashioned curtain stretchers that were used for pulling cloth from the bolts and inspecting it yard by yard for the infinitesimal flaws that had passed the weaving mill’s inspectors—flaws that would send a good cutter into paroxysms of rage if not found before the cloth was laid out.
In a room beyond, plain as a medical laboratory, the delicate process of cutting lengths of cloth to the designer’s patterns was carried out. In New York’s garment district, Sam knew, cutters now supervised computerized robot machines that cut hundreds of layers of textiles to a pattern at one time. Here she was looking at the painstaking, beautiful art of handwork.
In another room with a doorway so low they had to stoop going in, there were shelves packed with bolts of cloth. The women from the atelier had trailed after them curiously. Now Nannette offered to take down a bolt of gold-shot-aqua tissue silk for Sam to see, but Sam shook her head.
The cutting room tables were filled with odd pieces of satins, transparent gauzes, velvets, failles, chiffons, organdies, woolen worsteds, and printed linen. The richness of color and texture was almost overwhelming. Sam fought the urge to sit down at the tables and spend the rest of the day looking over the exquisite French and Japanese textiles.
There were also stacks of sample gray yardage, the embryo fabric as it came straight off the looms in the mill before it was sent to the finishers for processing. The various methods of softening the woven fibers and then bleaching them depended on the type of fabric and chemical coating.
“Mademoiselle Claude, she know tissu. ” Sophie picked up a length of grayish unprocessed silk velvet and rubbed it against her cheek. “She come here, she tell the finisher, ‘Zis will be so, la couleur, like I say, make it for me.’ And the finisher, he go back to Lyons to do it.”
Sam picked up the piece of silk velvet, passing it between her thumb and forefinger. Gray yardage was ugly and stiff, as colorless as its name, but it was like a skull before the flesh had been put on. In design school she had grown to love gray goods. They were a canvas on which you could create a beautiful picture. Any designer who worked only with grease pencil and a drawing board and never saw the raw cloth was only half an artist.
The creaky old Maison
And that, Sam knew from Jean Ruiz’s briefing, was only the beginning. The process went on at least three fittings more—the meticulous altering whereby the creation was made to fit the customer’s body an infinitesimal fraction of an inch here, another there, until the customer and the fitter both knew it was perfect. More than perfect—if the fitter wasn’t satisfied, the client kept coming back for more adjustments until she was. The finished product was one a woman could move in, breathe in and live in with reasonable comfort, aware that it was a work of art that made the wearer a work of art, too.
You’re going to find, Jean Ruiz had told her, that the French respect couture clothes so much that the secondhand shops in Paris put big signs in the window that say: “A real Chanel.” Or “A real Balenciaga.” Even when they’re ratty enough to send to Goodwill.
Strangely, the Maison Louvel’s workroom looked as though it were filling an order for a funeral. The tables were filled with black silk faille, black tissue crepe, sheer black organdy, floating panels, drapes, pieces of long sleeves, and bodices with high necks. A slither of white satin fell across a chair. A curious mix, but then the whole place was curious.
Sophie appeared at the doorway with a hazy smile. “Come, you must see zis,” she announced.
In a small room beyond the atelier were antique wooden frames like old-fashioned curtain stretchers that were used for pulling cloth from the bolts and inspecting it yard by yard for the infinitesimal flaws that had passed the weaving mill’s inspectors—flaws that would send a good cutter into paroxysms of rage if not found before the cloth was laid out.
In a room beyond, plain as a medical laboratory, the delicate process of cutting lengths of cloth to the designer’s patterns was carried out. In New York’s garment district, Sam knew, cutters now supervised computerized robot machines that cut hundreds of layers of textiles to a pattern at one time. Here she was looking at the painstaking, beautiful art of handwork.
In another room with a doorway so low they had to stoop going in, there were shelves packed with bolts of cloth. The women from the atelier had trailed after them curiously. Now Nannette offered to take down a bolt of gold-shot-aqua tissue silk for Sam to see, but Sam shook her head.
The cutting room tables were filled with odd pieces of satins, transparent gauzes, velvets, failles, chiffons, organdies, woolen worsteds, and printed linen. The richness of color and texture was almost overwhelming. Sam fought the urge to sit down at the tables and spend the rest of the day looking over the exquisite French and Japanese textiles.
There were also stacks of sample gray yardage, the embryo fabric as it came straight off the looms in the mill before it was sent to the finishers for processing. The various methods of softening the woven fibers and then bleaching them depended on the type of fabric and chemical coating.
“Mademoiselle Claude, she know tissu. ” Sophie picked up a length of grayish unprocessed silk velvet and rubbed it against her cheek. “She come here, she tell the finisher, ‘Zis will be so, la couleur, like I say, make it for me.’ And the finisher, he go back to Lyons to do it.”
Sam picked up the piece of silk velvet, passing it between her thumb and forefinger. Gray yardage was ugly and stiff, as colorless as its name, but it was like a skull before the flesh had been put on. In design school she had grown to love gray goods. They were a canvas on which you could create a beautiful picture. Any designer who worked only with grease pencil and a drawing board and never saw the raw cloth was only half an artist.
The creaky old Maison
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