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Contemporary creators
Her work ranges from home decor to fashion accessories: decorative panels, pillows, folding screens Cecilia Piacitelli Roger has lived many lives... well, at least three. In the first she studied palaeography and diplomatic, earning a diploma in archival science from the Italian State Archives in Milan. In her second life she worked with her family to produce high quality wines. In her third and current life, she has become a master in the art of embroidery, her true calling. She has put in long hours and much passion, tenacity and extraordinary sensitivity to reach a lofty peak of artistic expression and technical skill. But she has not forgotten her past lives and continues to draw on their endowment. Her academic training has given her an extremely methodical and meticulous approach to study and research. Her career as a maker of fine wines has fuelled her innate drive for concrete results and, especially, her love of the natural world, her first source of inspiration. Cecilia is a citizen of the world, a tireless and inquisitive voyager. She was born in Milan, the capital of fashion and design, and from there she set out on her incessant travels. She married a Frenchman and moved to the mountains in Pays-d’Enhaut, in the Swiss Canton of Vaud. She now works immersed in peace and tranquillity in an enchanting atelier with a breath-taking view of the mountains: the ideal refuge for the custodian of a creativity that demands inner tranquillity, concentration and precision. She works six to eight hours a day, and her most complex decorative works may require months to complete. This cheerful, bright-eyed, dark-haired lady is as amiable and enthusiastic as she is determined. She adores her work and seeks perfection with uncompromising perseverance. She has always harboured a passion for embroidery, which has now become a bona fide profession of excellence. Her work ranges from home decor to fashion accessories: decorative panels, pillows, folding screens and also precious, glamorous handbags (always produced in lim-
ited editions), with richly beaded floral patterns or highly refined petit point geometrical embroidery. Cecilia is fond of saying that her hands are her treasure and nature her muse: “Needles are my brushes, threads my pigments, precious fabrics my canvases.” The flowers, trees, leaves, herbs, berries, birds, butterflies, clouds, rocks and rivers that populate her canvases are all poetically rendered with remarkable attention to the tiniest detail. Needles, frames, awls, Japanese scissors, tambour hooks, komas, and tekobaris are among the fine implements in her tool chest. A tireless researcher and experimenter, in long years of study she has gained mastery of all the principal techniques in the Italian tradition. She has collected documents, studied the literature, visited museums and met with many other embroiderers to learn the secrets of their art. With great sensitivity and a strongly personal touch she has assimilated a vast storehouse of knowledge while also pioneering new forms and materials. Cecilia tells us that among the milestones in her learning process were her meetings with certain aged master embroiderers, repositories of a dying knowledge, her long frequentation of François Lesage’s Parisian atelier and her exposure to the sublime tradition of Japanese embroidery. She dedicated long hours to specialised courses at the renowned École Lesage in Paris, temple of haute couture embroidery, now part of Maison Chanel. There she developed her expertise in fashion embroidery, tambour beading and crochet, which she further refined at some of the most prestigious international schools, including the historic Royal School of Needlepoint and Hand & Lock in London, the Conservatoire des Broderies in Lunéville (France), the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala in Milan and most recently at the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London. But the most significant
Above, from left: the atelier, a former cabinetry workshop, restored by Cecilia Piacitelli Roger to contain her delicate and precious materials; Japanese-inspired embroidery made with the couching technique: a handmade silk cordon wound off a koma is tacked down by a fine silk thread using a handmade needle; Cecilia Piacitelli Roger at work among woollen yarns, frames and finished and mounted works. A number of silk-on-silk Japanese embroidery works are in the background.
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