Textile craftswoman Zélia Smith, the art of repairing what already exists

In Lyon, textile craftswoman Zélia Smith has a shop window. Through the windows, we sometimes see the thirty-year-old at work, sewing, embroidering or weaving an artist’s costume, a decorative element for a luxury home or a personal project. “I like the idea that passers-by can be made aware of these abandoned ancestral practices, she claims. I myself did not have the example of grandmothers who were fans of needlework and the younger generations will lack role models.

After graduating in arts and crafts and textiles from the Ecole Duperré (Paris 3^e), this Parisian by origin came to train as a costume designer in the city of silk, then worked for eight years at the city’s national opera before opening her own workshop in 2021.

The bright space is located in the old silk district, on the Croix-Rousse plateau, and transmission plays a large part there. The young woman, now a certified trainer, offers courses to learn needlepoint embroidery, Lunéville crochet, tufting (with a gun) and sashiko. This traditional Japanese art consists of patching textiles (usually blue) embroidered with patterns made up of small dots the size of a grain of rice – sashiko means “little sticks”.

In the movement of “visible mending”

“I have a passion for fabrics and weaves from around the world, for costumes from Southeast Asia, where I have traveled a lot, especially to Vietnam, to learn indigo dyeing. Delving back into books on the subject brought me back to Japan. And between embroidery and indigo, I came across sashiko.” A know-how of modest origin, which has gained an aesthetic and artistic dimension thanks to the development of a wide variety of motifs, some of which are loaded with meaning: protection, prosperity, etc.

On an indigo hemp canvas found on a market in Vietnam, woven and dyed by hand, Zélia Smith meticulously listed the different geometric figures. This sample book constitutes a precious basis for her work and appears in her book sashiko (Marabout editions, 2022), a collection of twenty simple projects to carry out.

In the wake of the visible mending (“apparent mending”), the craze for sashiko is growing. “Spending time on a garment to repair or transform it, giving value to existing things, this is what people are increasingly looking for”notes Zélia Smith, draped in her old blue apron found at the canal flea market in Lyon, on which she has embroidered every trace left by the passage of time.