{"id":163149,"date":"2025-09-12T11:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T15:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fourseasons.com\/magazine\/?p=163149"},"modified":"2025-09-12T11:26:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T15:26:48","slug":"la-maison-du-pastel-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fourseasons.com\/magazine\/culture-style\/la-maison-du-pastel-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"La Maison du Pastel: A Centuries-Old Color Conjurer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tucked away in Paris\u2019s 3rd arrondissement is a sanctum of colour. There, Isabelle Roch\u00e9 and Margaret Zayer, the chatelaines of La Maison du Pastel, serve the business\u2019s devoted patrons with the kind of rare attention that only the stewards of a 300-year-old house can provide.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"La
The modest storefront.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Over the centuries, pastelists have shared their colour wish lists with the proprietors, who\u2019ve scribbled notes about each request and spent years, if not decades, honing the tonal hues. In the late 19th century, chemist Henri Roch\u00e9 acquired the house and perfected formulas for binding powdery pigments in sticks of lightfast, luminous colour. He consulted such artists as Edgar Degas, who sketched pink-toned ballerinas in fluid poses, their fans and costumes lit with yellow and blue, and James McNeill Whistler, who touched his drawing of windows over a narrow Venice canal with aqua, crimson, and olive.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Maison
The hand-made pastels have a cult following among artists, designers, and other creatives. Photograph by Margaret Zayer\/Maison du Pastel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When Isabelle Roch\u00e9, a distant relative of Henri\u2019s, took over the business 25 years ago, she inherited its legacy of craft. She set about reviving the house, sifting through vintage pigments and papers to learn pastel-making, which involves turning taffy-like batter into small batches of hand-rolled sticks.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifteen years ago, Zayer joined the maison<\/em> as an intern and went on to oversee colour formulation. The two come to Paris once a week from their atelier in the countryside to open their shop on Thursday afternoons for just four hours.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Maison
Hot pinks. Photograph by Margaret Zayer\/Maison du Pastel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe colours are just beyond,\u201d says fashion illustrator Richard Haines. \u201cIt\u2019s like buying a box of bonbons\u2014a delicious piece of Paris.\u201d Recently, the maison<\/em>\u2019s palette surpassed 2,000 colours. The hues draw both artists and fashion designers (Karl Lagerfeld had a set), and devoted patrons know their favourites by their numbers or evocative names like Scarab and Flamboyants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Maison
A drying rack of pastels. Photograph by Margaret Zayer\/Maison du Pastel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A new line of fluorescent pastels debuts this summer, promising to ignite creativity in ways yet to be seen. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world’s oldest pastel maker sells from a tiny shop in Paris that’s open only one afternoon a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247,"featured_media":163154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"126719,137835,123493,153151,133244,131158","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1471,1467,1465],"tags":[283,1330],"class_list":["post-163149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-magazine","category-culture-style","category-travel","tag-art-and-design","tag-paris"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMaison du Pastel in Paris: A 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