‘The smell of a Couture House… Paris, July 1997, the final preparations for a haute couture show. Velvet Napoleon III chairs, rolls of precious fabrics lining the walls, wisps of cigarette smoke float in the air. A familiar voice, slow and fragile, breaks the monastic silence that reigns in this place. A model with the face of a Madonna emerges from a room accompanied by two seamstresses helping her with the ruffles of a dress under construction. Barely concealed by a transparent black silk blouse, her breasts vibrate to the rhythm of her hurried steps. There’s something divine about this temple of beauty: the solemnity, the meditation, the fervour of the “Atelier faithful” around the Creator-Demiurge. Doubt and then the miracle: inspiration and the advent of creation. To enter here, is like to enter a church… of velvet (église de Velours). A vibrato of wild silk, a vapour of incense, myrrh, a velvet of musks. Eglise de Velours is a caress of incense. Olibanum resin, meditative and mystical, is diverted from its purely atmospheric nature: it becomes epidermal, carnal and velvety. True to the PG style, Eglise de Velours is the subject of a silent conversation between soul and skin.’ – Pierre Guillaume
