A multiscreen video installation at the entrance of the new exhibition “Lesage, 100 Years of Fashion and Decoration” immediately plunges visitors into the world of couture craftsmanship.

That is the kind of work the specialty house has been doing since Marie-Louise and Albert Lesage began the business, and that it now executes at the 19M complex in northern Paris, where the free exhibition is on display through Jan. 5. (Reservations are recommended, but there are some walk-in opportunities.)

Projected on the walls of the dark entrance room, the minuscule stitches, overlapping sequins, golden coils and elaborate beading resemble topography, magnified by computer-generated 3-D imagery into mountains, canyons and desert-like landscapes.

The images were captured from 10 swatches of haute couture embellishments, each four inches square, created over the years for Yves Saint Laurent, Elsa Schiaparelli, Madeleine Vionnet and other designers, and selected from the more than 70,000 samples in the Lesage archives. The display also features a monolithic image of tweed, the signature fabric of Chanel, which acquired Lesage in 2002 and runs it as an independent entity within its heritage craft subsidiary, Paraffection.

That dizzying introduction leads into a cluster of spaces that retrace the house’s evolution from its founding in 1924, through the golden age of Paris couture in the 1950s and ’60s, to contemporary realizations. The spaces feature photos, sketches, samples, works in progress and tools of the trade.

For example, pieces from Karl Lagerfeld’s first haute couture collection for Chanel, unveiled in January 1983, mix with more recent examples of the house’s tweed suits.