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.