LESLEY

In 1889 William Morris warned an audience in Birmingham that modern manufacturing was in danger of destroying the beauty of life. In 1994, Lesley Roy Home Couture was founded in New Haven, Connecticut with the desire to preserve the ancient crafts of long ago. Morris, a textile designer, was born in Walthamstow, a small village outside London. Lesley's mother, a "Court" dressmaker for the Queen of England under the house of Norman Hartnell, was born in that same small village. Appreciating tradition has been a way of life.
Located in three historic buildings in the Westville section of New Haven, Lesley Roy Home Couture houses 20 artists, apprentices and other employees who embrace that same vision. The impressive 25,000 square foot space has everything an exacting artist needs to create and produce a unique product…a design studio, a dozen production rooms, a shipping area, a large retail store, and Lesley's beautiful new "Gallery Show Kitchen".
Unique glass shapes are made entirely by hand, incorporating her signature crackle technique on dinnerware, distinctive serving pieces, one-of-a-kind creations and a fresh array of accessories for the home. Each highly collectable piece combines "a love of antiquity with a new aesthetic." Lesley personally signs each and every piece adding, "this is my idea of quality control . . . each piece passes through my hands, and if it's not perfect it doesn't get my name signed on it.
"Lesley Roy Home Couture currently offers six collections: Fruit Orchard, Vineyard, Orchidaceum, Rosarium, Lepidoptera and new for 2002, Apricot Peony.
Thousands of pieces are produced at Lesley Roy Home Couture, and the time, effort, and energy that go into keeping the creative process running smoothly on such a large scale is hard for one to imagine. "It's one thing to make a beautiful plate . . . it's an entirely different issue to make 10,000 of them.
"Lesley's parents played an important role in herdevelopment, both as an artisan and as an entrepreneur. She credits her mother with an appreciation for tradition and the arts, but is quick to add that she is also an incredibly savvy businesswoman. Her father, a Ph.D. organic chemist with 70 worldwide patents, pioneered water pollution control technology in the 60's and helped set EPA guidelines in the 70's. "I spent a lot of time playing with beakers in the laboratory and buttons in the sewing room", says Lesley.
Lesley currently travels extensively doing "personal appearances" for Neiman Marcus. At these special events her loyal customers and new clients have pieces personalized, dated, view her latest designs, and ask numerous questions. The first and most frequently asked question is: "How did you get started in this?" People are truly fascinated with the process. She replies, "It's a long story, but finally all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together."
In 1976 Lesley won a national contest for Clairol's Long & Silky, which launched a twelve-year successful career as a model and actress. She traveled the world, appeared in Vogue, Glamour, Seventeen, Mademoiselle, and Brides among others as well as in commercials for Pepsi, Revlon, Maybelline, and Silkience. In 1986, Helen Gurley Brown encouraged Lesley to take her jewelry designs seriously and featured them in Cosmopolitan magazine. Other publications followed suit and that business was launched over night. Within the year she had the front showcase at Saks Fifth Avenue for her earrings, necklaces, cuffs, belts, brooches, hair accessories, jeweled boxes, picture frames and even Christmas ornaments.
In 1990 Lesley enrolled in the fine arts program at Yale University. She also made the equestrian team, and laughs about the deal she made with Yale. "I offered my horse to the team in exchange for boarding him, so we both got to go to Yale!.
"The creative journey continued with a fresh beginning. Painting, a skill self taught and honed during the 1980's, had already developed into numerous exhibits, commissions, and offers to teach by the time she entered Yale. Lesley taught hundreds of adults and children privately and in classes across the state. The studio she rented for teaching soon became the "laboratory" which launched her thriving business today.
An intense desire to replicate the antique patina and crackled appearance of the Old Masters paintings, sparked two years of research. The result is the process she calls "reverse glass art," a combination of artwork, special pigments, crackle, and gold leaf.
Presently, her years of teaching and painting come in handy as she personally trains apprentices in the complicated process. All of the gold leaf is applied by hand but the bands which accent many pieces are reserved for the most steady handed and skilled artisans, as they are done entirely "freehand." Christina Menzel who has worked with Lesley for more than five years has, on numerous occasions, recited Lesley's quote like a mantra… "Control your line…Control your life." The discipline required to learn and excel rolls over into the personal aspects of one's life. Some of the many quotes scattered on the studio walls read, "Our lifetime journey is a travel toward higher consciousness. The creative process is the vehicle artists use to travel." and "Make beautiful, perfect work at a time when the imperfect and the ugly prevail."
Lesley mixes her own paints using historically correct pigments, which are the same as those used in ancient Pompeiian and Egyptian frescos. The ground semiprecious stones used in these pigments contain naturally occurring crystalline particles that refract light in a way that no synthetic pigment can achieve. When light is refracted through them, the result is an amazing luminosity and brilliance of color.
Two years of an intense creative process has resulted in the spectacular studio gallery, a space envisioned for magazine photography shoots, fund-raising events, guest chef events, and as a "showcase" melding food & dinnerware. Featuring a spacious Viking equipped kitchen, a chateau inspired dining room with a 13' Louis IV dining room table, gold leafed floors, a guest bedroom, and a luxurious bath with Lesley's hand painted tiles, it has the unmistakable imprint of her design dynamic. Steps of inlaid river rock lead to a conservatory with a spectacular view of West Rock Mountain, and French doors open onto the 4,000 square foot rooftop terrace for which she is planning lush zones of flowers and plants in an elegant Manhattan style. Lesley's first event, for eight Neiman Marcus premier customers, is scheduled with guest chef Andre Rochat of Andre's in Las Vegas, and numerous other exciting events are sure to follow.
Lesley Roy Home Couture are carried exclusively by every Neiman Marcus and Harrods in London, Geary's of Beverly Hills and select specialty stores across the United States.