Dimitri Castano (Dimitris Vlachos)'s photostream

www.gold-embroidery.com

During his adolescence he showed a special interest in goldsmithery & silversmithery, which he practiced for a long time. In 1994, Dimitri Castano gets with the Art of Gold Embroidery. He is totally devoted to the most brilliant form of Greek art, the beginning of which lies in the glorious Byzantine Era, when Gold – Embroiderers were using it to decorate the majestic Emperors’ costumes. Dedicating his whole life in studying the secrets of Byzantine “needle painters”, as the first Gold Embroiderers were characteristically called, he creates his first oeuvres with subtle movements, repeated a million time and concentration, considering that an eventual error cannot be repaired.

Since 1999, after many efforts and a great mental and financial cost – regarding the valuable materials – ha has embroidered on exquisite textiles, as velvet, satin, leather with gold wire 14 & 18 carats, silver wire, pearls and other precious stones, achieving in transforming them in unique jewels. Guided by his inspiration, he composes unique liberal synthesis, gold-embroidered paintings decorating inner spaces, that are characterized mostly by the vivid bas-relief, the volume and the sensation of motion. In 2003, the International TV Network CNN acknowledges Dimitri Castano, after an exhaustive journalistic inquiry, as a unique artist in this field highlighting his important contribution in reviving Gold Embroidery.

As a person that adores innovations, he always seeks to create oeuvres, that could be compared in the future in perfection and magnificence to those rare treasures of this Art, that today are exhibited in Museums all over the world. Such achieved attempts constitute his last creations, that have as an objective to highlight woman’s beauty. He embroiders unique wedding and evening dresses, as well accessories, such as pair of shoes, handbags, belts. Some of these have already exhibited in a famous jewelry of Greece. Till today, he applies the traditional technique of the First Gold Embroiderers, though he succeeded in evolving it even more expanding by his needle Gold Embroidery into the worldwide haut couture!