The Chronicle · Vevey, 1893 — Today
Origin
The shop is small. Two metres wide, three metres deep. A bell on the door, a window onto the quay, and Élise Montéa, twenty-six years old, hemming a christening gown by lamplight.
She had trained as a seamstress in Lyon and come home to Vevey to be near the lake. Her first customer was the wife of the village notary. Her second was her own sister. By the spring of 1894, she had a waiting list.
One hundred and thirty years later, the shop is still there. The bell still rings. The lamp is on the wall above the cutting table. We still sew christening gowns.
Five Generations
1893
Élise Montéa opens her atelier on Quai Perdonnet, sewing christening gowns by lamplight for the families of Vevey.
1911
We commission our first hand-knit cardigans from twelve women in Appenzell. The arrangement still stands. Six of the original families still knit for us.
1938
Hélène Montéa, Élise's daughter, begins working with a single mill above Interlaken. We have used the same brushed-merino weight for blankets for eighty-six years.
1962
Our archive of butter, sage, dusted blue, and undyed cream is fixed. We have not added a colour since.
1989
Catherine Montéa moves the entire cotton supply to organic, twenty years before certification existed. The looms in Lyon humour her.
2014
After a quiet renovation, the original 1893 storefront reopens as our finishing house. The lamp Élise sewed by is on the wall.
Today
We are still small. We still sew in editions of eighty. We still date every label by hand.
A promise
Generous seam allowances, longer stitches, reinforced gussets, dated labels. A small thing. The thing.
