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Maison Lesage
Embroidery
If one name stands for couture handwork, it is Lesage. Albert and Marie-Louise Lesage took over the Michonet workshop in 1924, and the house made its reputation on avant-garde embroidery for Elsa Schiaparelli, who sent Lesage all her embroidery until she closed in 1954. François Lesage then carried it through Balenciaga, Balmain and Yves Saint Laurent.
Start here because the house says it holds the largest heritage of embroidery samples in the world, and because its school, founded in 1992, trains much of the next generation. Chanel's partner since 1983, it joined the group outright in 2002, yet its work still shows up well beyond Chanel's runways.
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Atelier Montex
Embroidery
Where Lesage is the grand archive, Montex is the experimenter. Founded by Jacques Lemonier to embroider fabrics for Paris houses, it found its voice in the early 1980s under artistic director Annie Trussart, who borrowed from music and architecture and paired unexpected materials. Its sample archive includes lace embroidered onto newspaper and spirals of baguette beads built up in 3D.
Look here for the bolder, more graphic side of couture embroidery. Montex joined Chanel's craft group in 2011 and was the first atelier to move into le19M, in March 2021.
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Hurel
Embroidery, family-run
Hurel is the counterweight to the Chanel story. Founded in 1879 and billed as the oldest embroidery atelier in Paris, it is still run by the fifth and sixth generations of the Hurel family, and it has long worked for Chanel, Dior, Armani and Valentino alike.
Its embroiderers work with the Lunéville hook and the needle on luxury fabrics but also on plastic and paper, which is how the atelier came to make the garbage-bag couture gown John Galliano designed for Dior in 2006. An archive of about 30,000 pieces backs up that range. Choose Hurel to see a family house still working for many labels in a trade where most famous names now belong to one group.
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Maison Lemarié
Feathers and fabric flowers
Lemarié is one of the last plumassiers, or feather workers, in Paris. Palmyre Coyette founded it in 1880 to supply feathers to milliners, and her grandson André Lemarié, who took over in 1946, turned it into a couture workshop trusted by Balenciaga, Dior and Givenchy; Yves Saint Laurent ordered a white ostrich-feather evening coat from it.
Its best-known product is Chanel's camellia, assembled petal by petal from silk, organza, tweed, leather and more, at a rate of about 20,000 flowers a year. Chanel bought the house in 1996, which is a large part of why a trade this small still has a workshop at all.
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Guillet
Fabric flowers
Guillet is the second flower house in Chanel's group, and its roots are in the theater rather than the runway. Marie Guillet established it in 1896 to build theater sets and supply hatmakers, and it went on to dress shop windows for Yves Saint Laurent, Hermès and Gucci before Marcelle Guillet, who inherited the house in 1971, steered it toward couture, working with Jean Paul Gaultier, Christian Dior and Chanel.
Chanel brought it into Paraffection in 2006, and its blooms have featured in the house's Métiers d'art collections. Choose Guillet to see how a trade born in the theater and the milliner's shop became part of couture.
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Maison Legeron
Silk flowers, family-run
Maison Legeron is the other answer to the Chanel story. The workshop traces its origins to 1727, Louis Legeron took it over in 1880, and Bruno Legeron, who learned the craft from his mother, now runs it as the fourth generation of the family.
Blossoms are still assembled by hand, one by one, and every petal shape comes from a numbered punch tool kept in the business since its early days. Dior, Saint Laurent and Givenchy have all ordered from it. Pick Legeron to see a couture supplier that stayed independent and still works much as it did a century ago.
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Atelier Lognon
Pleating
Every crisp sunray or accordion pleat on a couture skirt has to be set by someone, and in Paris that is often Lognon. The craft is pure method: fabric is folded between hand-cut cardboard molds, baked at 85 to 100°C and left a day to cool so the pleat holds. The atelier keeps about 3,000 molds, the oldest dating to around 1900.
The house traces itself to Émilie Lognon, a linen maker in Napoleon III's time, and passed to her great-grandson Gérard in 1945. When he retired without a successor, Chanel's Paraffection took it over in 2013. It still pleats for Dior and for the Paris Opera, so the purchase saved a supplier the whole trade uses.
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Massaro
Bespoke shoemaking
The Massaro workshop opened in 1894 at 2 rue de la Paix, and Raymond Massaro, the third generation, gave it its most famous design: the 1957 beige pump with a black toe cap that became Chanel's classic two-tone shoe. Bespoke work starts with a conversation and a measured foot, and clients have included Marlene Dietrich and Elizabeth Taylor.
It also made shoes for Madame Grès, Thierry Mugler, John Galliano and Azzedine Alaïa. Chanel bought the house in 2002, and Raymond Massaro retired in 2008, handing the workshop to Philippe Atienza. This is the entry for anyone who thinks couture stops at the hem.
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Maison Michel
Millinery
Auguste Michel opened his millinery at 65 rue Sainte-Anne in 1936, and the house still shapes hats over a collection of more than 3,000 wooden blocks, backed by a stock of antique straws and felts. Milliners Pierre and Claudine Debard made it the supplier of choice for the big houses, and in 1975 they brought back the Weissman machine, which assembles straw hats with invisible stitching.
Karl Lagerfeld began working with the atelier in 1983, and it joined Chanel's craft group in 1997. Maison Michel also sells hats under its own name, so this is the easiest atelier on the list to buy from directly.
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Goossens
Goldsmithing and couture jewelry
Robert Goossens, the son of a Marais foundry owner, opened a small goldsmith's workshop in the 1950s, and from 1954 he and Gabrielle Chanel developed jewelry in antique and Byzantine styles, including crystal Byzantine crosses. He also made pieces for Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Madame Grès and Dior.
Goossens matters because it blurs the line between costume jewelry and fine metalwork, and because the house applies the same hands to furniture and decorative objects as well as jewelry. Chanel bought the workshop in 2005, and it now works at le19M.
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Desrues
Buttons and costume jewelry
Georges Desrues founded this maker of buttons and costume jewelry in 1929, and it worked for Jeanne Lanvin, Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. Its place in this story is as the beginning: Chanel acquired it in the mid-1980s, the first of the workshops it set out to preserve.
Each piece draws on more than 20 trades, from 3D modeling and casting to gilding, glassblowing and lacquering, and the buttons, chains and clasps of Chanel's collections are its daily work. It is also the clearest example of the trade-off: over 95 percent of what Desrues makes is for Chanel, though over the years it has also worked with Vionnet, Givenchy and Lanvin.
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Causse
Glove making
The entry farthest from Paris, Causse is in Millau, the southern French town long known as the capital of glove making. Brothers Jules, Paul and Henri Causse, cutters and glovers by training, founded it in 1892, and four generations passed down the work of preparing lambskin and stitching each pair.
Its factory was designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, and it has made gloves for Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Loewe, Givenchy and Christian Lacroix as well as its own collections. Chanel's Paraffection bought it in 2012. Pick it to see that the craft group reaches beyond the capital into regional trades with their own long histories.
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