Wednesday 2 September, 5-6 p.m. (BST): Online Talk, From Paris to London: Couture Embroidery with Nadia Albertini

Online Talk via Zoom

Nadia Albertini is a Paris-based  embroidery designer and historian and independent educator whose work sits at the intersection of haute couture craft, archival research, and cultural transmission.

She currently holds a doctoral position at the École nationale des Chartes (Paris), where she researches the history of the Rébé haute couture embroidery atelier (1907–1967), and has published two monographs: Rébé broderies haute couture (2021) and Kitmir, les broderies russes de Mademoiselle Chanel (2023). Her scholarship brings into focus the largely undocumented world of the Parisian embroidery ateliers that defined twentieth-century fashion.

Her design and consulting practice spans leading luxury houses — among them Chanel, Schiaparelli, Dries Van Noten, Balmain, and Chloé — as well as cultural institutions including the Palais Galliera and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. She teaches at the American University of Paris, Polimoda Firenze, and at the University of the Arts of Singapore, and has delivered programmes at the Textile Art Center and at Metropolitan Museum of Art, both in New York. 

Talk Description
From Paris to London: Five Rébé Embroideries and Their British Lives
In the workrooms of the Rébé atelier — one of the great Parisian embroidery houses of the twentieth century, active from 1911 to 1967 — thousands of samples were created, catalogued, and preserved. Some of these fragments found their way into French museum collections. Others became something more: the surface of a finished haute couture garment, now held in a British fashion collection far from the hands that made them.

In this talk, embroidery historian and doctoral researcher Nadia Albertini traces the journey of five such objects — from their origins as atelier samples in France to their lives as treasured pieces at institutions including the V&A, the Fashion Museum Bath, and the Royal Collection. Drawing on her current research at the École nationale des Chartes, Paris, she reveals what these embroideries tell us about the hidden craft networks behind haute couture, and why their preservation on both sides of the Channel matters.

Location
This is an online event. A PDF containing the Zoom link will be sent to you upon booking. Please ensure to download this file to access the link. 

Recording
This event will be recorded. A link to the recording will be emailed to all those who register following the live session. Please allow 7 working days for us to send you the recording.



Cancellation Policy

All places reserved for online events are non-refundable. 

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