Les ailes de la soie

The butterfly is without doubt the most enduring symbol of metamorphosis. Earthbound in caterpillar form, it next becomes a nymph or larva, and an imago, before fluttering into the air with incomparable delicacy. The cocoon it leaves behind is spun from threads of which precious material? Silk, of course. Aline Honoré’s design borrows the silhouette and pattern of four superb lepidopterae – the Attacus Caesar of the southern Philippines, the Argema Mittrei or Comet Moth of Madagascar, the Epiphora Bauhiniae or silkmoth of Saharan Africa, and the “Jacobece d’Amérique”. Their delicate, dazzlingly-coloured wings are decked with a multitude of geometric motifs, defining their stylised silhouettes against a background of silken cocoons.