Inspiration Valentino catwalk

Cord as a decoration: straight from the catwalk to your studio …

Decorations with cord: once you start researching here, you are easily swept up in an endless series of descriptions and applications; some more beautiful than others.

There is ready-made twisted cord which in itself is wonderful material to work with. In couture creations, however, accents are often made with the fabric in which the garment is made. In the case of cord, you should think of with-fabric-turned-cord. This is also known as “Rouleaux” in couture.

In searching for this technique, I also came across many examples that are intriguing for other reasons. That, by the way, is one of the reasons couture continues to fascinate me: the infinite variations you can come up with on a theme.

For example, this version done in knitted material:

Here you could make another link to the embroidery work that does get done with the Cornely machine.Cornely machine.

Or how do you like this one with ribbon:

Historical Inspiration

Examples from the past may be a great source of inspiration as well.

If you look at the sketch in the picture above, you can think of Al Aire embroidery techniques, but also of cord sewing.

Rouleaux ribbon was widely used on various garments in the 19th century, but you still see it today, such as in this 2013 Valentino dress: