She’s got these lace-up hands and gestures to damned Vermeer; then almond eyes of infinite sweetness, and an enigmatic smile, almost supernatural. It certainly comes from elsewhere! Eternally young, Kyoko Sugiura is an art embroiderer and designer, of Japanese origin, who creates endlessly in her Parisian workshop pieces embroidered with great finesse. Mastery of its ancestral art, reappropriation with poetry, so that everything, nature and its seasons, animals, emotions, recount a unique moment with delicate embroidery and full of feelings. It is also a privilege to meet her because we discover a luminous artist as the lamp of night and infinitely accurate in her creations, her words and her nobility of soul.
Her Japanese education
“I was born in Chiba, a city on the outskirts of Tokyo, to a family that had no special connection with art.” It’s her mother who’s going to push her in that direction. She was incredibly good at knitting, sewing, embroidery, cooking, which she had learned in school like any Japanese girl who was preparing to become a model woman for her family “and she did everything for me”. She used to sew her clothes, and even though at that time Kyoko wanted to be dressed like everyone else, and especially to buy her clothes, today these memories are very valuable to her. “It was really wonderful. She made me pretty dresses, even school bags and bed covers. Everything was homemade and intended to please me, and to feel unique in the world.” Kyoko will learn these disciplines at around the age of 11. The little girl lived near a large park that she crossed every day to go to school and she particularly liked this living nature and the holidays spent on the farm of her maternal grandparents, who worked in rice fields, “in the countryside, with cows grazing near the river”.
The thread of embroidery
Her mother was very demanding in her mode of education; For example, there were plenty of little rules to follow every day, such as at the time of the traditional Japanese meal, put the miso soup on the right and the rice bowl on the left. “I learned the rigor and patience that helped me assimilate embroidery techniques later.” Kyoko quickly got her hand to knit in school and she excelled in the disciplines of manual art. She also works pieces at home with her mom. But she will continue her studies normally and learn chemistry to move into agriculture. At the same time, she did small jobs, notably working in theaters, which allowed her to access culture.
After finishing her university degree, Kyoko Sugiura will take up an office work, but will continue to learn embroidery techniques in evening courses offered by a publishing house. “I couldn’t sleep at night because this activity galvanized me so much, and I brought my work and my works together day and night.” She will then start practicing her art. For each creation, she used to choose with care her supplies (fabrics, dimensions, yarns and other accessories) to draw, embroider, assemble, make and create a beautiful object through the fabric and yarn. Hours of work for a sublime result, pure beauty, elegant and refined. “My first designs were cushions, bags, frames, and at the entrance to my parents’ house, there’s always my painting of flowers with lots of light floral variations, and filled with lots of intense colors.”
First achievements
Kyoko married at the age of 25 and enrolled in a fashion school, where for 3 years she was going to improve in stitch embroidery and sewing techniques, to unleash her creativity on any type of fabric. She also taught at this school and started thinking about the self-employment project, with personal art-works. At this time, she also learned the secrets of the “Nihon Shishu”, the traditional Japanese embroidery, which is used in particular to make paintings, kimonos, obis and which conveys the essential values of Japan. An embroidery with silk threads and hand that allows to offer the traditional lightness of fine silk.
It is here that she will make her first trip to France. “We visited the South and then Paris and there I found a big fabric store that changed my life.” Thick fabrics, unique in their kind and designed for interior decoration. She will buy several models and make embroidered bags for herself, which will be a great success. Very soon, she had a proposal to exhibit her creations in an art gallery in Ginza. His career is on the way. Kyoko opens a shop in Tokyo, continuing to source fabrics from Paris where she will come once a year.
She then embroidered on many different materials, with sequins, beads, cotton yarns or wool to nourish both a collection, and for some models custom made for her customers. In order to expand its range, Kyoko Sugiura will offer classic bags for the day and more sophisticated embroidered bags for special occasions. And she will also give embroidery and sewing classes during the day in her workshop.
Create and transmit
In 2009, both spouses decided to take two sabbatical years, and came to settle in Paris. Kyoko enrolled in a private embroidery school in Sartrouville to learn the technique of Lunéville hooks which are used for art embroidery and fashion haute-couture, for embroidering in Beauvais stitch, chainnet, or for laying beads and sequins. It is here that she will begin to practice in haute couture workshops, first as a trainee, then as a service provider, twice a year, to prepare the most beautiful collections of Parisian fashion shows. “In France, what I learned was more the artistic spirit, and the luxury that inspires me. The attention to ornament, infinite details, subtle materials and an overflowing creativity.”
Today, she continues her work with soon textile sculptures where she will mix several techniques, such as stitching, knitting, drawing, gilding, etc. and her personal creations with her international clientele and to prepare exhibitions. She also teaches at a fashion school in the Paris region. “It is so important to constantly evolve and to get out of your comfort zone. I now like to return to Tokyo with a different look. Moreover, in my island country, a foreign country is said to be ‘beyond the sea’. You have to cross the sea to get out of it, then come back.”
Is Kyoko Sugiura related to Princess Kaguya, Japan’s famous old tale? Born in a bamboo, she comes from the Moon and she goes back to it all her life. Like her, she takes us there constantly when her lace-making hands embroider without stopping to restore us a dreamlike beauty, almost from another planet. But Kyoko Sugiura is also a free woman-artist who carries in her a precious sensitivity, which allows her to capture everything that touches her and express her not in restraint, as in Japanese culture, but in a creative language that is very much her own, entirely left to her art and everything that goes through her…
Interview held by Carine Mouradian on 21 September 2019
Link to the website of Kyoko Sugiura Créations
Photo Gallery of Kyoko Sugiura
Related projects
