Meet Paris Upholsterer Damien Jaffré
Off and on during the past year or two I’ve been stopped dead in my tracks with images I see on Damien Jaffré’s Instagram feed found at damienjaffreupholsterer. I remember him telling me long ago that he’s a Paris upholsterer who wants to relocate to the US. At first I thought he was just kidding, but it turns out that this talented guy really does want to come to the US to practice his craft.
What caught my eye this week from Damien was the red hand stitching he did to emphasize the seams on this modern, brown, traditionally upholstered lounge chair. Some people might look at that and wonder what he was doing. I looked at it and thought, “Simply brilliant!” I love it that the stitches are a little irregular and different lengths, all the more reason it’s super chic. Getting the stitches to look so free form had to be much harder than it looks. When I asked him what his inspiration was for the stitching, he said the designer wanted something different and so he just came up with this. I then wandered over to Pinterest to see what kind of hand stitching on furniture we might be seeing. Looks like it could be a trend, but my favorite is still Damien’s version instead of the very perfectly uniform stitching. Perfectly imperfect, I always say.
Here’s what’s popping up over on Pinterest.
I really love this ‘above ground’ ladder stitch with the contrasting red thread. Image from: offect.se
Designers Guild finished off the edges in a contrast blanket stitch. Image from designersguild.com
The neon green stitching could be machine done, or maybe not. It’s hard to tell with such a closeup. Image from: offect.se
Ahhh, a nice little bright orange zig zag right over the sewn seams. This is very doable, but still would take much patience. Image from: chaplins.co.uk
Who would have thought about this clever repair? A new piece of fabric is cut to fit the top of a damaged leather cushion and stitched right to the existing cording. In all probability this wouldn’t last too long, but it’s a handy quick fix. Image from: rosehip.typepad.com
I don’t even know what to say about this. The raspberry top stitching on light gray wool flannel-Wow! Decorative, sculptural, but not so sure how long it would hold up. Image from: atticmag.com
The top stitched upholstery details should provide you with a wee bit of upholstery inspiration for your next creative project but Damien’s work goes far beyond embellishing the edges of finished upholstery. He, like Armand Verdier, are French trained upholstery geniuses. It’s an honor to know these guys who are so well trained in the very finest details of French upholstery. They’re young, hip, funny and tech savvy. It’s a centuries old craft filling up rapidly with The New Upholsterers.
Go visit his Facebook page here, and his website right here.
If Damien gets a job in the US, I’ll be urging him to set up a workshop or two in French upholstery. Wouldn’t that just be
très bon?
