Agathe Mania: “You don’t need a lot to make an impact”

“I see different landscapes,” Paris-based embroiderer Agathe Mania says when we sit down to talk about her work for Fur Vision 2023 collection. When she started working with us, she was about to travel to Los Angeles for work. On the plane, looking down the window, she could only think about the embroidery work she had started to make for Saga Furs. And she saw different landscapes varying from mountains, water, fog to clouds.

Mink, reflective hand-painted sequins and swarovski beads on tulle; using Silverblue, Pearl, Brown and Sapphire mink dyed in three colours.

“I was really inspired to work with these samples because I had a lot of freedom in the process. I had worked with mink before, so I knew how it works and how light catches it. But this was the first time that I used fox, and it was really interesting to learn about it. With fox, you don’t need a lot to make an impact.”

A stunning hand-embroidery work

Looking at the sample placed on the banner of this page, and Agathe’s first work with fox, she explains that it took her 10 full days to finish it.
“With this sample I was working on trial-and-error technique: you pin something, then you stitch it. After a while you take a step back and see that you need to re-work a segment you already think was finished. So, you constantly fix, add and edit. But this is a common process for this type of embroidery.”

The final sample is stunning and interesting – beads, hand-coloured frayed satin duchesse and fox coming together to form a rich sample. The sample makes you wonder how this unique texture could be used in a for example a garment. Even tough there is a lot of volume on the samples they still look very light making them a great combination of fur and other materials.

How would you translate this inspiration?

 Agathe-Mania-mink-embroidery

On left, fox, mink, beads and sequins hand-emboidered on hand-painted cotton fabric.
On right, mink hand-embroidered with beads and sequins on layered tulle.