Langlois-Martin, Paillettes

When designer Isaac Mizrahi was commissioned by the Nature Conservancy to design several items using an unusual sustainable material—salmon skin—for an exhibit called Design for a Living World at New York’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum, he imagined a dress covered in salmon-skin sequins, or paillettes, and turned to France’s last paillette-maker, Langlois-Martin, founded in 1919 and still a family business. While it’s true that the tiny ornaments are often round and shiny, they actually come in a myriad of shapes, sizes, materials, colors and finishes. Langlois-Martin, producing only haute-couture quality paillettes, stocks an astonishing 5,500 different versions in every shape imaginable—leaves, fans, wings, petals, flowers, cat’s eyes, shells, triangles, rings and squares, in sizes ranging from less than 1/8-inch to 4 inches. They come in 900 stock colors, but can be made in any shade the client desires. While most sequins today are produced in bulk in Asia or India, Langlois-Martin’s paillettes are still made in Paris. Many varieties are punched out of high-quality plastic, but others are made of metal, fabric, leather and even python skin. The company’s strength lies not only in its savoir-faire but also in its flexibility, which allows small production runs for custom orders. Mizrahi’s dress and matching coat, completely covered in paillettes, along with the rest of the Design for a Living World exhibit, was displayed at the Cooper-Hewitt in 2010.

www.langlois-martin-paris.com

Originally published in the December 2009 issue of France Today