Hands-On Adventure

Editor: Noreen Flanagan Assignment: Discover how Chanel’s Métiers d’art ateliers bring fashion dreams to life.

LOCATION: VENICE

WHAT: HOMO FABER EXHIBITION WHO: THE ARTISANS I discover fairly quickly that Google Maps is no match for Venice. My eyes are laser-focused on the moving dot as I try to find my way to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. That is, until the moving dot takes me down a laneway that ends with a brick wall. I decide to go off the grid. As I put my phone in my bag, I notice a sign in the Bortoletti window that makes me smile: “Write don’t text! Leave Facebook and Twitter to others.” It’s a fitting nod to the reason I’m here, which is to attend the Homo Faber exhibition of European craftsmanship. It’s being held at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini—a short ferry ride from the city. At the entrance, there’s another sign that catches my eye. “Their work has the power to surprise and give us hope,” write the fair’s founders. “Hope in a world where human hands will always be able to bestow the most valuable and rarest gift of all: the generous touch of love….” I make my way to the Lesage exhibit to meet two women who are master embroiderers for the legendary Parisian atelier. They invite me to join them at the table where they are embroidering a map of ancient Venice. “You have to be patient and calm to be an embroiderer,” suggests Nadine, who has been patiently doing this work since her grandmother taught her to sew when she was a young girl. The atelier, which started to work with Chanel in 1983, produces pieces for the house’s runway shows, including the annual Métiers d’art. When Nadine sees her work on the runway, she says it “feels like a baby we’ve brought to life,” adding that when a woman “wears these pieces, she’s surrounded in love.”