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When textile designer Anne Corbière is working, she often thinks of her grandmother. “She was a weaver and I always loved seeing her at the loom,” she says. “It was like an invitation to go off on a voyage — in a boat that people sat at and kind of rowed. It enchanted me.”
Born in Oregon and now based in Anjou, France, Corbière is known for her intricate, hand-woven textiles — tactile and often diaphanous designs that were first used in couture fashion by the likes of Christian Lacroix, Balenciaga and Chanel. Since, they have been featured in interiors designed by Peter Marino, Muriel Brandolini and Jacques Grange.
Her output ranges from bespoke upholstery fabric and textile art pieces to a made-to-order collection of yarn and rattan blinds (created with Thai weaver Chiem at her small rural workshop). Currently, Corbière is working on wall panels for Chanel (with Marino) and Tiffany boutiques; tapestries for a new Paris hotel; and she has recently released a new lamp of delicate woven layers with British design brand Ochre.
“As a child, I always knitted and embroidered and did different types of needlework,” she recalls. Her first career was as a costumier, based first in the US, then in London and Paris. While working on director Peter Brook’s epic nine-hour theatre production of The Mahabharata in the 1980s, she became interested in fabric dying, a process she describes as “my first intimate relationship with textiles, of really getting down and dirty with them”. But she fell in love with weaving’s interplay of “densities, patterns and rhythms” and enrolled on a two-year course at the Atelier National d’Art Textile in Paris. “I just felt like I was home,” she says.
The shift from fashion to furnishings came in the late 1990s when Corbière and her husband Vincent — a classical guitar maker turned sculptor and furniture designer — moved to a farmhouse near Angers, and established separate studios side by side. At the time, “it was not cool in France to make things with your hands,” she says. “It took us a while to come out of the closet as the craftspeople we really are.”
The couple are regular collaborators, with Corbière creating woven fabrics for Vincent’s chairs and lampshades for his sculptural bases — pieces they show at Galerie du Passage in Paris and Twenty First Gallery in New York. Corbière’s solo collections include the Jalousies rattan blinds; sheer textiles designed for windows called Indiscrétions; the more densely woven Vertiges range for wall panels; and blankets and throws created with French merino wool farmers. For her bespoke Couture service, she comes up with unique fabrics, pillow panels and even fringing for special projects.
“When we came across Anne’s work, we just thought, how can we use her incredible fabrics in one of our pieces?” says Joanna Bibby, one of the trio of designers behind Ochre. The answer was a new version of its Cloud Shade using Corbière’s mix of linen and technical yarns, their natural hues offset with subtle flashes of white gold.
“I work a lot with gold and metals, but not to be bling-bling, not to make it look shiny and rich, it’s more about playing with light,” says Corbière. “The first time I was weaving gold it was for Lacroix and it struck me: this is why gold is used religiously and spiritually.” It’s another thread linking back to her grandma. “She would use 1950s Lurex,” she says. “I actually have some of her old bobbins; they’re quite beautiful.”
Jalousies panels start at €490 (timeframe 6-12 weeks); bespoke textiles from €800; annecorbiere.format.com; Ochre Cloud Shade, £12,840; ochre.net
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