He did succeeded in making "high art" glassware in the natural forms and soft colors of Art Nouveau, and gained a reputation for superb work in the medium. The latter half of the nineteenth century brought the revival of this ancient technique. Though the operations proved both complicated and delicate, Argy-Rousseau manufactured everything within his own workshops. Like Louis C. Tiffany, William Morris, and Emile Gallé, master craftsman Argy-Rousseau improved his methods through continual experimentation. He also made his wares affordable to the public at large through mass production. During a time when decorative artists worked in various mediums or at least in many techniques within one medium, Argy-Rousseau limited himself to pâte de verre, which consists of powdered glass molded and then fused by heat.

Argy-Rousseau completed his degree at the National High School for Ceramics in Sèvres, France. As art historian Janine Bloch-Dermant notes: "Technique was of paramount importance to Argy-Rousseau and as soon as he had left school, he chose the title 'engineer-ceramist'. At the school Argy-Rousseau became friends with Jean, the son of Henry Cros. Henry Cros, the man responsible for the rediscovery of the technique of pâte de verre, ran a workshop in Sèvres in which the young Argy-Rousseau learned the art of pâte de verre.

In 1914, Argy-Rousseau first exhibited his designs in pâte de verre to immediate success at the Exposition du Salon des Artistes Français. The critics responded enthusiastically, "Such successful shapes, such amazing coloring produced by the gold, brass, cobalt, and uranium oxides; such beautiful intermingling of colors, such fluid sculpture!."

However, Argy-Rousseau did not make his work widely available to the general public until 1921. When Gustave Moser-Millot, the owner of both a Parisan gallery and a glassworks at Karlovy-Vary in Bohemia met with Argy-Rousseau, they formed Société Anonyme des Pâte de verre d' Argy-Rousseau. A third member, Moser-Millot, acted as chairman of the board of directors and Argy-Rousseau became managing director. It was decided that the company would encompass, the industry, the manufacture, the commerce and everything those processes entail of the product known as 'Pâte de verre d' Argy-Rousseau' and all the other products associated with pâte de verre, enameling on glass and all other items produced by firing.

During the first year, the fledgling company ran at a loss due to the costs of technical updating, the transformation of the company into an industrial and commercial venture, research, experimentation, new furnaces and muffles, and the training of twenty workers and decorators. However, Argy-Rousseau soon began producing vases, bowls, night lights, lamps and shades.

Argy-Rousseau promoted both the glass technique and the actual wares. He advertised his Les pâtes de verre of Argy-Rousseau in both French and American decorative arts magazines of the time. The advertisements also served to give Argy-Rousseau credit for the new techniques he invented to improve the method of making pâte de verre. He educated his purchasing public with leaflets which described the procedure for producing pâte de verre in sufficiently explicit detail to cultivate appreciation of its finer qualities.

The focus of Argy-Rousseau's experimentation was different methods of achieving pâte de verre effects. He used a model and mold method technique for most glass production. A mixture of plaster and other materials was placed upon a model to form a mold. This mold, after drying, was then filled with the ground glass. The mold was not reusable, but the original model could be used an infinite number of times. Argy-Rousseau made glass in both colored and colorless versions to produce the exact colors he desired.

Argy-Rousseau hoped to create and produce for a mass market and not just for the elite. Unfortunately, he never realized this goal because the technique of pâte de verre did not allow one to turn out quantities of similar items on a production line. Furthermore, there were significant losses incurred during production and firing.

In the end, however, Argy-Rousseau did develop certain labor-saving semi-industrial techniques. For example, he used molds which enabled the same model to be produced a number of times. Still, he had to mix the actual glass paste with its color-producing oxides separately for each item. Despite the fact that he utilized the same model each time differences in thickness and height resulted. Further, each piece gave the illusion of uniqueness because minimal variations in mixing or firing could produce a wide variety of colors.

Within the production stages of pâte de verre glassware each component required individual hand work. Machines could not be utilized. Technicians repeated tasks in production line manner by hand: preparing the pâte, placing the items in the furnace, and firing.

Argy-Rousseau assumed the role master craftsman; he devoted his energies to every step of the production process and acted as both technical and artistic director. He did not employ teams of artisans and scientists, like Tiffany or Gallé, but personally took charge of all the firm's projects. However, as was then fachionable, Argy-Rousseau presented himself as an industrialist. La Nature, a contemporary journal, reported in 1928, "He obtained strong relief industrially... and after experimenting with new colored pastes, and having placed a test tube in a small muffle furnace... these preliminaries completed, the industrial production began." Argy-Rousseau self-presentation as an industrialist was consistent with the era's pride in its technical progress. The public at large appreciated the industrial, as well as the artistic, nature of his work. Like other industrial producers of glass such as René Lalique and Emile Gallé, Gabriel Argy-Rousseau considered himself an industrialist as well as a artist. However, it will be shown that Lalique's large-scale production of glassware using indestructible cast-iron molds differed from Argy-Rousseau's small scale methods. Gallé's workshop methods also differ because Argy-Rousseau followed the production procedure from beginning to end, resulting in each piece being a 'unique' work of art. Finally, the true nature of Argy-Rousseau's pâte de verre leads it to be deemed industrial only in the sense that it encompassed the transformation of raw materials into finished products.

Argy-Rousseau, truly a craftsman working in an industrial context, produced pâte de verre for a new generation of buyers eager for his finely crafted glassware. His embrace of quality designs in the flora and fauna motifs of Art Nouveau, along with expert workmanship, popularized his wares with an elite public. Like William Morris, Argy-Rousseau necessarily catered to the upper classes, the only consumers who could afford his wares. Unlike Morris, Argy-Rousseau desired more industrial methods, but his medium stipulated hand craftsmanship. Thus he never mass produced pâte de verre in such a way as to make it widely available, nor did he consider his artistic wares truly industrial.