Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Atelier is a workshop or studio, especially one used by an artist or haute couture fashion designer. It is the French word for “workshop” or “studio”, and in regard to clothing, shoes, jewelry or accessories it references a designer's studio or workshop in which they work to merchandise and manufacture product.
Atelier is a workshop or studio, especially one used by an artist or haute couture fashion designer.
In art, the atelier consists of a master artist, usually a professional painter, sculptor, or from the mid-19th century a fine art photographer, working with a small number of students to train them in visual or fine arts. This very word has also taken on other similar meanings, indicating a place of work and study of the haute couture fashion designer, hair stylist and artists in general.
Atelier is the French word for "workshop" or "studio". In regard to clothing, shoes, jewelry or accessories it references a designers studio or workshop in which they work to merchandise & manufacturer product. In English the term Atelier is most often used for the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students, and apprentices work together producing pieces of fine art or visual art released under the master's name or supervision. Although the primary use of the word may be in regard to artists, it is clearly recognized as an apparel industry term as well.
Many ateliers have internationally recognized fashion designers, employees of the designer, as well as apprentices. Apprentices usually begin young, working on simple tasks, and after several months or years become more important within the organization. Often an apprentice may grow to a point that they leave their current workshop to become masters designers of their own business.
Although the methods vary, most painting ateliers train students in the skills and techniques associated with creating some form of representational art, the making of two-dimensional images that appear real to the viewer. They traditionally include sessions for drawing or painting nude art.
Atelier schools can be found around the world, particularly in North America and Western Europe.
Synonyms of Atelier: workshop, studio, workroom
You may also want to learn more about international fashion designers from our guide.
Learn more about haute couture fashion designers here in the fashion terms section.
In Paris couture houses the word names something specific: the workrooms where a collection is actually made, staffed by seamstresses, tailors and finishers whose skills are organized by specialty — soft dressmaking in one room, tailoring in another. A design may arrive as a sketch, but it is the atelier that translates it into toile, fittings and finished garment, solving construction problems the drawing never mentioned. That is why couture houses guard their ateliers and the experienced hands inside them: the reputation of the house is sewn there.
Outside couture, fashion businesses borrow the word for its associations — a small bridal atelier, a leather atelier, a designer's atelier line — to signal workshop-made rather than factory-made goods. Used honestly, it tells the customer that garments are designed, fitted or finished in that studio, under one person's direction, in the same master-and-assistants pattern the term has described since the art workshops of the 19th century.
Atelier is the French word for “workshop” or “studio”. In English it is most often used for the private workshop or studio of a professional artist or haute couture fashion designer.
A principal master — the designer — together with a number of assistants, students and apprentices, producing pieces released under the master's name or supervision. Many ateliers have internationally recognized fashion designers among their people.
Apprentices usually begin young, working on simple tasks, and after several months or years become more important within the organization. Often an apprentice may grow to the point of leaving the workshop to become a master designer with a business of their own.