The crowd was preoccupied with Ms. McCartney's latest makeover, of a former antiques emporium: the two-story ivy-covered building had been reconfigured into a third Stella McCartney boutique, following ateliers in London and New York.
That the ateliers of the second title are plural and those of the first singular seems mildly ironic (the Tate show takes in Mondrian's workshops in the Netherlands, New York and, fleetingly, London), although it turns out to make unexpected sense.
The one who ultimately designed it was Jean's younger brother, Henri, who had first gone to work for the ateliers as a draftsman at age 15.
The moment you step into the verdant courtyard is like going back into the past, as these ateliers and showrooms date back to the eighteenth century, with very little having changed.
Trade journals exist, but W Jewelry is the first publication to romance consumers with glimpses into the ateliers and lavish homes of fashion's latest celebrities -- designers like James de Givenchy, whose extravagant baubles are the rage among Manhattan's gilded set.
"She would go to the designers' ateliers and help them with their designs," recalled Polly Mellen, who, when she first worked at Vogue, shared an office with Mrs. di Montezemolo.
This research, which appears in a two- volume survey, provides the show's scholarly background.This is the first time that an exhibition of this scale has concentrated on particular artists, their families and ateliers, rather than on the regions of India or particular patrons and rulers.
Trained in a yearlong in-house academy, followed by one to two years under the watchful eye of a tutor, they labor in buildings throughout Paris's Eighth Arrondissement and in a vast 27-year-old complex in a suburb called Pantin and small satellite ateliers throughout northeastern France.
Slums turned into charming ateliers.
