Alexandra Latour – Embroiderer

Ile-de-France – 1974

Alexandra Latour is an embroiderer. After studying at Ecole Boulle in FMA and DMA (1991-1996) art crafts section in the tapestry workshop, she started her career as an assistant designer and then as a freelance textile and color designer for 8 years (1999-2008). In 2008, she worked in the haute couture and ready-to-wear sector as an embroidery designer and embroiderer of finished products. Chanel (Atelier Lesage), Dior, Valentino, Lanvin, Schiaparelli, Yves Saint Laurent, these twelve years of professional experience in the luxury industry has made her a rigorous craftswoman expert of the embroidery techniques.

Nevertheless, she has had a growing desire to work through an ethical way. In 2020, she created Atelier Latour based on her convictions and all her experiences in haute couture. This workshop is a way to defend the history and the know-how of embroidery which seems to disappear. The objective: “to dedicate her knowledge, her creativity, her passion, her talent, her know-how to her embroidery workshop, playing with the historical heritage”. All her pieces are handmade or made with the Cornely technique (dating from the 1860s), depending on the materials she has to combine in a piece (muslin, organza, tweed, jeans, etc.).

Research and innovation

Passionated and committed, Alexandra Latour launched the brand La Veste en Jean in 2020, surrounded by 2 associates, Natacha Fouquet (former colleague and pattern maker), and Delphine Faque (costume designer and tailor). This brand is ethical and supportive. Indeed, Alexandra Latour, surrounded by her team, uses old 100% cotton jeans to create limited collections with the Cornely technique away from the industrialization process. She also works with many secret techniques that come straight from her experience in haute couture houses. Her goal is to enhance the status of the jeans to the luxury category.

Will to transmit

Alexandra Latour has a team of several people she has trained. When she was in residence at the 5 Toits center, she involved families of this center as well as women from the Centre d’Hébergement d’Urgence to work on La Veste en Jean project. She has also taken interns under her wings several times and trained her entire current team at La Veste en Jean. Eager to perpetuate her know-how, she actively participates to events in the sector such as the JEMA 2023 or her future exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin in April 2023.

Moreover, Alexandra Latour has noticed the lack of training with the Cornely machine at schools. With the desire to pass on the Cornely technique and to bring it further, the craftswoman has set up a partnership with crafts schools in order to welcome trainees and teach them the technique.

Fondation Rémy Cointreau has supported Alexandra Latour in this sense, through the acquisition of a Cornely machine that will allow her to welcome more students to train them to the technique.