One of them, Kinya Maruyama, who is head of Atelier Mobile (symbolized by a running bird) and also teaches architecture at Waseda, recently traveled to New York to check on the completion of two projects.
Blackburn, Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman, and Leo Katz the head of Atelier 17 after Hayter were among the artists who attended Beauty Conferences and Art Inquiries conducted by Eli Siegel, classes in which he discussed current work of contemporary artists with the artists present and participating.
"It has to be raw and sophisticated at the same time," Galliano explained to Raffaele Ilardo, the head of the atelier.
Yet when Catherine Delondre, the head of the atelier, saw the garments emerging from the workshop, "we thought, this is real couture".
The company sources items from around the world, many of them produced by small artisan operations: tableware made in a renowned Chinese porcelain house; highball glasses hand-blown in Poland; hotel bedding from Carlo Bertelli, the third-generation head of his family's Italian atelier.
It's a combination of atelier, education workshop and conservation laboratory, with a small exhibition space.
Simons may play the lead, but it's otherwise an all-girl cast of atelier workers and moneyed clients.
From £50, kisua.com, from October Stills Stills Created in-house in an atelier in Amsterdam, the pattern-makers, seamstresses and designers collaborating on this contemporary label are led by head of design Korrie Vulkers and design manager Martin Tramper.
He didn't immediately head for the atelier, however; first he developed his fashion credentials at the Prada visual merchandising department, working under its charismatic leader Manuela Pavesi.
But they are commonplace compared with the 38 that will roll out of the "atelier" of Pagani, an Italian manufacturer, this year.
But a showcase of the extraordinary skills of the atelier did not make for Chanel's most convincing fashion message.
