Isabelle Roché (left) has been running the family business since 2000, and Margaret Zayer joined from Long Island in 2010. Zayer researches the pigments and formulates the new colors. No other manufacturer has more than 525 shades today, while Roché has 913.
Image courtesy of The World of Interiors.
The workshops of La Maison due Pastel are hidden an hour away from Paris, and Isabelle Roché and her associate, American Margaret Zayer (a former Fine Arts student from Long Island), are today producing the entirely hand-made dry and intensely colored pastels for which they have been known for literally hundreds of years.
This fantastic shop has a fascinating past. Louis Pasteur, an amateur pastellist, introduced the young pharmacist Henri Roché to the artisans at Maison Macle in 1865, a highly regarded pastel atelier since 1720. Roché purchased Macle in 1878, renamed it Maison du Pastel, and through contact with such artists as Degas, Redon, Whistler and Sisley, perfected his pastels. The rest is history.
The women today blend pure pigments with a binder, a guarded family secret. Balls of color are rolled into cylinders before being cut with a chaveta, a semicircular axe used for chopping tobacco leaves in Cuba. Inspired by their historic pastel collections, they are looking forward to their 300th anniversary in 2020 when they hope to have 1,200 shades in production, and they hope to one day make the pre-war range of 1,650 shades.
Visit their Paris shop in the Marais if you can! Click here for more information.
Image courtesy of The World of Interiors.
Image courtesy of The World of Interiors.
Images courtesy of Famille Summer Belle.
Exterior of La Maison Du Pastel in Paris. This tiny atelier is open to clients on Thursday afternoons only.
Image courtesy of Paperblog.
