CATHERINE LEGRAND

Fashion and textile designer, graphic designer, collector, traveler, photographer, set director and author, Catherine Legrand has made the act of creating the central focus of her life.

Catherine Legrand was born in Paris to a family of artists in 1946. Her father, René Legrand, was first a painter, then a designer; her mother, Mado Jolain, a well-known ceramist. Together they created the Quatre Saisons shops.www.madojolain.fr www.quatresaisons-1965-1985.fr

Catherine was destined to become a graphic artist; she achieved this in both New York and Paris. At the same time, she worked with French stage director Ariane Mnouchkine, creator of the avant-garde Parisian stage ensemble Théâtre du Soleil and its theatre collective. Catherine designed posters and programs for many of their productions. www.theatre-du-soleil.fr

Catherine’s focus turned towards textile creation and design.

1977 marked the opening of the A La Bonne Renommée boutique and workshop; it was also the start of a partnership with the visual artist Elisabeth Gratacap which led to thirty-five years of creation. Collections followed, one after the other until 2012, all presented at their boutique in the Marais, Paris: fashion, accessories and home furnishing items. Designs were often inspired by ethnic themes. The book À LA BONNE RENOMMÉE, 136 Saisons captures this unique adventure.
www.labonnerenommee.com

Catherine’s numerous travels, during which she collects textiles, ethnic dress, costumes and jewelry, have been her source of inspiration. Catherine creates itineraries to follow her passion: ethnic clothes and fabrics. She travels from workshops to markets, visits ethnographic museums, flea markets or antique shops, thus designing a made-to-measure tour of the world.

Once back to Paris, photos and travel logs find their place in her books, true textile travel journals, as well as in her exhibits and collections.
TEXTILE A WORLD TOUR, published in 2007, CARNETS D'INSPIRATION TEXTILE, 2008, INDIGO, the colour that changed the world, 2012, DE LA TÊTE AUX PIEDS, 2017, PATCHWORK, 2022.
www.lamartinieregroupe.com
www.thamesandhudson.com
www.jullienbrothers.com/indigo/publications

It became obvious to Catherine that she should present her ethnic collections in situ for the profit of a large public. So, she became the curator of her own exhibition. Indigo, textiles ans cloathings, was first shown during the year 2014 in Hungary and in a gallery in Santa Fe (New Mexico, USA) then in 2015 in Paris (Bibliothèque Forney), at the Musée Bargoin (Clermont Ferrand, France), in Nîmes’ Museum in 2016 and In Bourgoin-Jallieu museum (near Lyon) in 2019.
The exhibition PATCHWORKS is to discover at the Carrefour Européen du patchwork, SAINTE-MARIE-AUX-MINES, Haut Rhin in 2022.
http://www.jullienbrothers.com/indigo/expositions