Bruno Legeron was an artisan and an artist who never made the same flower twice. Each creation was an original handmade piece.

The Paris-based flower manufacture was founded in 1727 and bought by Louis Sebillon in 1880. His great-grandson Bruno Legeron is the 4th generation owner of the family operated business. The workshop that was located a few steps away from the Palais Royal Garden had been his second home for as long as he can remember.

In 1977, soon after he obtained an Economics degree, the young graduate joined the company to work with his parents who were running the family business. At the helm since 1993, he fondly remembers the days when he used to come and help out as a young boy. A silk flower pinned to his rugged workshop apron, a pen tucked behind his right ear, Bruno Legeron whose second passion is football, was a perfectionist who knew the flower-making industry inside out. He oversaw every step of the production: he personally die-cut the fabrics and dyed the shapes. Yet, he still made time to greet his clients whether they are famous designers, private milliners, or individuals.

Each flower was “hand-grown-to-order” mainly for haute couture and luxury ready-to-wear. Dior, Givenchy, Stéphane Rolland, Vuitton, Céline, Anne Valérie Hash were Maison Legeron’s most loyal customers. However, he pointed out that today artisans depend on the artistic directors and their creative teams. Emphasizing the importance of developing trusting relationships with them, he said, “When an artistic director leaves a couture house, sometimes we are forgotten for a whole season if we did not build a new relationship with the successor’s team. Years ago, when a stylist joined a fashion house, he or she would spend their career there until retirement. We, the artisans, used to talk directly to the designers such as Oscar de la Renta or André Courrèges. But things have changed. Today, we mainly talk to the stylists. Rarely do we talk with the designer.”

The fashion industry has significantly evolved over the last thirty years but the process and tools utilized to make fabric flowers have barely changed. According to Mr. Legeron, “The designs were just not so classic anymore and we often mixed fabrics, such as silk with organza or lace, or we used printed fabrics provided by the designers to match a specific garment. Some popular fabrics of today, such as rhodoïd and latex didn’t exist when my grandparents were in the business.”

“Until the 1970s and prior to the imports from Taiwan, we had a few market niches strongly connected to the French industrial activities. We made millinery flowers for the doll brands Bella or Corolle when the dolls were actually made in France. We also created decorative fruit arrangements on chocolate boxes for the Holiday season. These traditional niches are long gone,” he said. The small company over time had adapted to the requirements of the markets. It landed commissions for commercials, window displays, weddings, cultural venues such as the Opera de Paris, luxury fragrance brands or the film industry. “We even made millinery flowers for Sofia Coppola’s movie ‘Marie Antoinette’, and we have also been working with Guerlain perfume house and with shoemakers such as Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo,” he said.

First, the lightweight fabric is stabilized with starch and stretched over a wooden frame to dry. A die is selected and multiple layers of fabrics are struck with a manually-operated press that cuts out the shapes. With cotton fabrics, six to eight layers can be processed at once. However, with silk, 24 layers are die-cut at a time. Bruno Legeron himself used to dye the shapes, diluting the colored powders with alcohol. He used his perennial eleven basic colors, and quantities or combinations were carefully written down on separate cards, with some cards dating back to his father’s days. “We kept everything!” said Mr. Legeron.

Maison Legeron, before the acquisition, used to employ nine dedicated workers, all women. “They all joined the company when they were 16 or 20 years old, owning a C.A.P. (Vocational Training Certificate) as fleuriste-plumassier. These ladies had been working there for 25 to 35 years, and they were very familiar with every sector of the production. The most important thing is motivation and persistence. It takes approximately eight to ten years to be fully independent and to be able to create a flower. We may spend 250 hours on a single dress, so during the Fashion Weeks we would need to hire extra help, mostly motivated students. Prior to WWII, my grandparents had fifty employees but at the time there were over one hundred flower houses in Paris. Only three remain today,” he said.