Sunday Read: The Art of Couture Embroidery

Publishing on 6 November 2025, The Art of Couture Embroidery: The Secrets of Runway Design by Jessica Jane Pile and Robert Ossant is poised to become an essential resource for anyone who longs to look more closely at the garments that have shaped contemporary fashion. Richly illustrated and meticulously researched, the book offers a rare dual perspective: part biography, part fashion history, part technical manual. Together, Pile and Ossant unravel the stories stitched into couture’s most iconic surfaces.

Pierre Balmain fitting one of his haute couture gowns on actress Ruth Ford in November 1947. Photo: Carl van Vechten/Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

The authors begin with the premise that understanding a garment requires understanding its maker. Echoing Renoir’s assertion that one must know the artist to understand the art, each chapter traces the personal histories, influences and working philosophies that shape a designer’s visual language. From Elsa Schiaparelli’s surrealist wit to Rahul Mishra’s poetic engagement with nature, embroidery emerges not as afterthought or embellishment, but as a narrative device able to expose deeper truths about the creative mind...

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Image Credits:

Lead: Zuhair Murad, Fall/Winter 24/25. As featured on the cover of The Art of Couture Embroidery: The Secrets of Runway Design by Jessica Jane Pile and Robert Ossant. @zuhairmuradofficial

All further images as credited in photo captions.