This week I spent two wonderful days in Paris and have come back to the UK feeling refreshed and stimulated. On the first day I went to Modamont, the trimmings show, and was really impressed to find several European family companies producing hat ribbon and able to custom-make quantities as small as 100m with our own stripes, colours and prints. I also visited L'Aiguille en Fete (The Needle Festival) Pro, an international trade show dedicated to textile crafts.
The following day I had booked a textile tour of Paris as part of L'Aiguille en Fete. Our day started at the Quai Branly Museum Cafe where Françoise Cousin (Doctor in ethnology, curator and in charge for many years of the textile collections of the Quai Branly Museum) explained how the Museum built its magnificent collections. The museum is located next to the Eiffel Tower and throughout her talk I watched the snow fall through the glass walls of the cafe, completely obscuring the tower at times.
We then had a two hour guided tour through the collections, from the 1000 pleat skirt to, my specialist area, a wonderful collection of textiles from Paracas.
After lunch, we travelled over to the Marais district in the 4th Arondissement to visit the atelier of Claire-Marie Neufville where textile artists involved in the haute couture industry were gathered to present their work and tell us about the techniques they use. I talked to Béatrice Meunier (artist), Catherine Jahan (fabric painter), Maïté Tanguy (weaver), Betty de Paris (color specialist) and Corinne Gradis (textile artist). I bought a beautiful scarf for my mother's birthday from Catherine Jahan in handpainted silk. I was delighted (and surprised) to discover that she was planning to visit Stoke-on-Trent soon for a designer collaboration with The New English and I'm looking forward to seeing her again soon when she visits me in Staffordshire.
Claude Fauque, author of over 20 textiles books, talked us through the beautiful images in her book La Broderie: Splendeurs, mystères et rituels d'un art universel Even though my french is fluent, I do wish this book was avaiable in English! Claude is a consultant in museology and specialist in textile history and she explored the significance of embroidery through themes such as decoration, power and religion.
I wish I could spend more days like this! It inspired me to spend more time carrying out research into South American textiles and also made me realise that some of my collection of Peruvian textiles should probably be in a museum.