June 2026

Passementerie

The craft that finishes everything

Passementerie is the art of ornamental textile, the braids, cords, fringes, tassels, epaulettes, and rosettes that finish a garment, mark a rank, frame a room, and hold a ceremony together. The craft has been practised in Vienna since the city was synonymous with ceremony itself. This month, four angles on an almost forgotten trade that never stopped being essential.

Company of the Month
Text logo of the company M. Maurer
Full Portrait Available
M. Maurer

Since 1863, M. Maurer has produced the braids, cords, tassels, and uniform effects that hold ceremony together. Six generations, one craft.
Object of the Month
Fouro golden tassels against a white background
The Tassel

Found on European curtains and Chinese lanterns, on military uniforms and academic gowns, the tassel is one of the few decorative objects that appears independently across cultures that had no contact with one another. On a universal impulse to finish an edge with intention, and the object that has answered it for centuries.
Feature
Female fingers stitching stars in a military epaulette
When Ornament Becomes Language

A plain garment covers a body. A garment with passementerie communicates. On how ornament became a coding system, and why that system is still in use.
Feature
Close-up of a braiding machine with wooden bobbins arranged in a circle
The Institutions That Never Stopped Ordering

A trade that once filled an entire district of Vienna has contracted to a single company. The craft survived not because it reinvented itself, but because certain human needs proved more durable than the industry built around them.
Feature
A golden tassel hanging on an antique key in an elaborately ornamented keyhole against a blurry background showing tapestries
What Disappears Without It

A period film set without passementerie is a set that does not quite convince. On the trim, the braid, and the tassel that hold an entire scene together without ever being noticed.
Feature
Close up of three silk cushions on 19th centruy style settee with gilt wooden frame
The Edge of the Room

Passementerie has always concentrated its attention on edges, the hem, the border, the fringe. A reflection on why the boundary of a domestic interior carries more meaning than its centre.