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Meet Master Glassmaker Caroline Prégermain

In the heart of Paris, Caroline Prégermain perpetuates and modernizes ancestral know-how. She is a master glassmaker. It's a fascinating craft, a skilful blend of technique and creativity that gives rise to a work of art as spectacular as it is delicate: stained glass. For as long as she can remember, Caroline has been fascinated by glass. By its transparency, by its color, and by the life that emanates from the material when it comes into contact with light. The young teenager, who had initially opted for wood and metal sculpture, eventually graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d'Art Olivier de Serres, specializing in stained glass. It was a choice of the heart that Caroline made almost 40 years ago, and one that has been a matter of course for her ever since. There have been moments of doubt, especially in the early days when stained glass wasn't as popular as it is today: "Glass really came back into fashion 4 or 5 years ago. Back in the 90s, interior designers weren't thinking of using stained glass, as it echoed the Belle Époque and religious decor. That's why master glassmakers were mainly involved in renovations and heritage projects," she recalls.

It was in this sector that Caroline got her start, somewhat reluctantly. Restoration was, and still is, the majority of stained-glass work. "Looking back, it was obviously a good thing that I went into this field, but I was often disappointed by the work we produced in the workshop where I worked: renovations with a very simple style and poor aesthetic research". But deep down, Caroline is a creative person. She dreams of beauty and wants to put her overflowing imagination to work to create unique pieces for others.

In the late 80s, when the opportunity arose, she opened her own workshop. She's young, ambitious, "and a little shy", she admits. And in this male-dominated environment, where the young woman did not fit the image of a master glassmaker, she struggled to make a name for herself. Her credibility would come a few years later with the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France. This opened many doors for her, not least among interior designers, who hailed her talent and her initiative in bringing a breath of modernity to stained glass.

But how can an age-old art form, so closely linked to religious art, be brought up to date again? The traditional technique remains unchanged, but the end use of the product and its environment will make all the difference. "Interior designers mainly use stained glass in two types of situations: to respond to problems of luminosity or facing," recalls Caroline. However, while the findings are often the same, the answers are infinite. Each new encounter at the Saint Didier workshop is like a new page being opened. From her exchanges with designers and owners, the master glassmaker draws everything she needs to build her work. "I have my own universe, but above all I adapt to the tastes and needs of my customers, always trying to harmonize and bring lightness to the whole". Caroline's style is clean and modern. She combines geometric shapes with carefully chosen touches of color, so that her creations become one with the environment in which they will be installed. To this, she adds material, gold or platinum, and plays with the textures of glass to give character to her stained-glass windows.

From then on, the magic happens. Caroline adds the finishing touch that brings a space to life. She adorns the windows of a bathroom with slender stained glass to protect its occupants from prying eyes. She adds a touch of character to an openwork front door. She adorns a glass roof with colors and subtle ornamentation. She imagines contemporary sliding door designs whose shapes come to life as they are used. Among her most prized works is the Soleil double door: a play of textures and bronze hues inviting you into a hidden living room. A bewitching visual work, which the light multiplies when it comes into contact with the lacquered wood walls, and which gives another dimension to the adjoining corridor. Proof that stained glass only comes to life when integrated into the environment for which it was specifically created.

When her customers so desire, the master stained-glass artist specializes in painting her stained-glass windows. This is the case, for example, of the project she is currently working on for an apartment on avenue Foch. Classical stained-glass windows combining geometric shapes and delicate ornamentation. It's a highly elaborate process, requiring a certain artistic skill: the refinement of a flower, the subtlety of an expression on a face, the details of a hand... It's a long-term process, giving rise to a unique work of art. More than a technique, it's an art that Caroline is proud to perpetuate, and one that makes perfect sense at a time when standardization has taken hold in every field.

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