Manufacture Prelle- Lyon's silk heritage

A silk manufacturer in Lyon since 1752, Manufacture Prelle creates luxurious fabrics in small series and works on prestigious decoration projects as well as heritage restoration projects. As an ambassador of French luxury and refinement, Prelle is proud to perpetuate the great Lyonnais tradition of silk work for a clientele in search of the exceptional. Signatures Singulières Magazine opens the doors to this workshop where the magic happens.

Above: Sabine Verzier and Guillaume Verzier, director of the Manufacture Prelle. on the right: double curtain in pearl gray silk, collection “Galy & Gallien”. Embrace Passementerie Verrier. Showroom Prelle in Paris.

manufacture prelle - signatures singulieres — Wall hanging with Damas Rivoli and Pain Brûlé silk velvet, with an archive of 19th-century Japanese embroidery. Table Impala table (and its glass work by the Bernard Pictet workshops) and the lamp by the art cabinetmaker Ludwig and Dominique.

Artisan of silk and beauty!

A family business for six generations, Manufacture Prelle – one of Lyon’s oldest furniture fabric manufacturers – offers its ancestral know-how to architects and decorators. Since 1752, the company has been creating and producing exclusively in France. Its aim? To perpetuate the internal transmission and to continue to innovate through its know-how and creativity. At the origin of the Manufacture Prelle, there are two families, Prelle and Verzier, both long-time Canuses. Together, they have kept alive the traditional craft of silk work in Lyon. A heritage passed on to their descendants since today the technicality and richness of the styles specific to the canuts are still preserved. Indeed, the Manufacture Prelle is not a simple publisher of fabrics, but a manufacturer. Moreover, the design office is still integrated into the manufacturer and the designers are trained internally, just like the other craftsmen of the manufacturer. A perpetuation of knowledge that resonates with Signatures Singulières Magazine and many others.

manufacture prelle - signatures singulières — “Galy & Gallien” Collection, woven in brocade with a crystal box by Cristal Benito. The use of gold threads gives us a glimpse of how the fabric was imagined at the time. On the left: a historical map that served as a starting point and where we can see that finally, everything is a story of details.

Lyon silk industry with bi-centennial know-how

The strength of the Prelle factory is to have preserved the old techniques and several generations of looms working together. From the so-called hand looms to the most modern electronic or mechanical looms, each of one of them allows Prelle to meet specific and varied demands. While the hand looms – the only ones on which we can still weave the precious chiseled and brocaded velvets, as well as special manufacturing tests in small series – allow us to implement techniques that are unequaled with the mechanical looms, the latter offer unlimited adaptability without sacrificing either the quality or the beauty of the fabrics.

interior decoration - signatures singulieres magazine — A Collaboration with Uchronia Studio ©Félix Dol Maillot

Even more efficient weaving looms

To make its fabrics, Manufacture Prelle uses Dornier jacquard weaving looms, which they adapt to their needs. For example, they have developed a loom capable of weaving 162 cm wide. With a density of 300 threads per inch, allowing no less than 19,000 threads across the width, each individually ordered. A little jewel! The choice of looms is essential to guarantee quality weaving in Lyon. This means dense fabrics (a large number of threads in the warp and in the weft). And this is without forgetting the quality of the threads! Manufacture Prelle uses yarns milled in France, as well as in northern Italy in Piedmond, and manufactured for their needs. To do so, they use exclusively unfilled silk yarns (untreated, of better quality, and more durable), custom dyed by the last silk dyer in France with whom Manufacture Prelle works hand in hand.

manufacture lyonnaise d'étoffes - signatures singulieres — two warps, two layers of vertical threads, and a horizontal linen thread in the background, creating a pattern in relief.

art deco armchair - signatures singulieres — Linen fabric made with chenille thread from the “Raku” collection.

Custom-made, small series, and restoration

The Prelle Manufacture is known in the restoration field for putting its know-how at the service of the identical reweaving of fabrics once destined for great residences and royal palaces. Thus, from 2015 to today, Prelle has woven damask and brocatelle dedicated to the Emperor and Empress Lodges, for the Garnier Opera House in Paris. These fabrics were originally woven at the time of Charles Garnier by Eugène Prelle, one of the ancestors of the House in 1874. In addition to this heritage activity, each year the Manufacture enriches its stock of fabrics with new designs in its collection. The colors, techniques, and contextures are adapted to work on various renderings, with the same attention to detail as their other activity which is special manufacturing. This can be the modification of an existing fabric in the collection (the color of the warp for example) or starting from scratch and imagining a design based on a project of a designer. This custom work is possible thanks to the talents and flexibility of the Manufacture Prelle teams. At Signatures Singulières Magazine, we salute this wonderful work!

signatures singulieres - manufacture prelle — Benches covered with the brocade “Domino” in the collection. Project by Jacques Garcia for the Park Chinois in London

Paris, New York, two dedicated showrooms

To discover its collections, the Manufacture Prelle presents its beautiful fabrics in two showrooms: in Paris, at 5 place des Victoires, and in New York, on 10th Street and Broadway, in the famous Manhattan district. Two exhibitions in majestic cities to welcome the company’s clients and discuss their projects. For an exceptional Maison, exceptional places. Two majestic addresses where fabrics create the decor. On the walls, dazzling damasks, velvets, and brocades set the tone and make these places confidential locations in which to contemplate these marvels. As for the furniture, covered with beautiful Prelle fabrics, they offer the possibility to project oneself, to discover or rediscover the collection. Two addresses that Signatures Singulières magazine invites you to discover.