Haute Couture: Is it on its last legs?

[markese91]

futuristic? i think it's alot about the past and the integrity of the design world.

 

[fashionista-ta]

I think it's certainly evolved significantly. It used to be for nearly the same audience that designer is today. It was within reach of the well to do--you didn't have to be superrich. So that has definitely changed. And along with that, it has to offer something more to justify the huge price tags. But apparently some of the collections are actually making money.

It's so different from what it was even relatively few decades ago that I'm not sure it should still be called the same thing.

 

[m.j.]

It's so different from what it was even relatively few decades ago that I'm not sure it should still be called the same thing.

i agree with that.

​

 

[markese91]

i've never heard that the wealthy could afford Haute couture... I've always been told it was the super rich... they saw it as an investment, people don't see it as that anymore.

 

[iheartbags]

Don't say HC is dead... giving people in the industry and beyond a dream is important. HC is that dream. HC is something of another world...its creations are fantasy...

 

[Flashbang]

The Return of Haute Couture

With a new global clientele, fashion's highest art is on the rise
By CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO

Today haute couture is the most modern way to dress because it's very individual," says Pier Paolo Piccioli, who with Maria Grazia Chiuri designs Valentino's ethereal gowns. "It's like customizing your life; it means uniqueness."

There is no argument that haute couture is supremely beautiful. To think of it as the apex of modernity, however, goes against conventional wisdom. In fact, for several years, haute couture has been repeatedly declared on the brink of extinction. But perhaps reports of its death were premature. The strictly governed French craft of handmade and custom-fitted clothing, which is more than a century old, is undergoing a renaissance. In the past few years, six new labels have been awarded the official haute couture designation and entered the fray, bringing the total number of couture houses to 12. Long-established couturiers like Chanel and Valentino are reporting healthy sales. And new customers from emerging markets like China, Brazil, the Middle East and Russia have stepped in to bolster the ranks of the fading old guard.

The current state of couture has emerged from the ashes of economic turmoil. "Couture seems more relevant now than it was in the boom years," says designer Donatella Versace, who this season returned Atelier Versace to the official couture runway after eight years of low-key presentations. "The global downturn has made people think about the value of things. Couture may be expensive, but as a reflection of the designer's art, and as an expression of pure creativity in fashion, it is unsurpassed."

As a rule, couture houses are secretive about their clientele. Purchasing a custom-made, five-figure piece of clothing comes with the gift of discretion, a rare commodity in our publicity-crazed world. But executives describe many of their new clients as relatively young working women—doctors, lawyers, executives—who spend their own salaries, often on daywear and not merely for special occasions like weddings and black-tie galas. One of Valentino's recent couture clients, for example, is an equestrian enthusiast who wanted a bespoke jacket to wear with her riding pants.

Where you can really see a marked shift is in many of these houses' post-show itineraries. Up until just a few years ago, most clients were in the U.S. and Western Europe, and after the runway shows in Paris, designers would take their collections to New York City and Los Angeles for additional presentations. Now Dior, Chanel and Armani Privé all go to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Dubai, and do private appointments in many other cities. The atelier heads also travel for individual fittings, maintaining the personalized relationship the houses have long cultivated with their clients despite couture's recently globalized nature.

This all evokes a culture very different from that of traditional haute couture: wealthy socialites in grand dresses from idolized designers such as Christian Dior and Jeanne Lanvin. For many years, that's certainly what it was. After World War II, these houses outfitted a newly prosperous class of society ladies, heiresses and royalty, from Babe Paley, Marella Agnelli and Grace Kelly in the '50s and '60s to Nan Kempner, Lynn Wyatt and Dodie Rosekrans in the '70s and '80s. Meanwhile the '90s saw the rise of prodigious and quite public couture buyers like Mouna al-Ayoub, then the wife of a Saudi businessman, and Suzanne Saperstein, a former Swedish model who was the wife of a Texas billionaire. They stand in stark contrast to the discreet shopper of today. Now it's difficult to find women who so openly display their membership to the couture club.

But couture also began to get stuck in the past. Women entered the workforce and discovered the efficient pleasure of buying off the rack; ready-to-wear itself became a glossier commodity. It was previously the domain of department stores, which traveled to Paris to visit couture salons and buy the right to produce cheaper versions of their collections on an industrial scale. Yves Saint Laurent changed that second-fiddle reputation when he created his first full ready-to-wear collection in 1966 in an attempt to democratize high fashion. When Cristobal Balenciaga shuttered his couture atelier in 1968, it was clear that times had changed.

Couture seemed to hit rock bottom in the middle of the last decade, when Balmain, Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro and Christian Lacroix all showed their final collections. For the labels that remained, couture became a way to stand out amid the clutter of hundreds of ready-to-wear lines. For the likes of Dior, Chanel and Valentino—which all typically reserved a sky's-the-limit budget both for dramatic staging and the collections themselves—the image of haute couture provided a halo of luxury around the label to help peddle mass-market items such as perfume and makeup.

As haute couture undergoes the process of revival once more, its insular and quintessentially Parisian nature is changing. To wit, many of today's practitioners are not French. Italian designer Giambattista Valli debuted just last year, joining Giorgio Armani, which launched couture label Armani Privé in 2005, and Versace, which began in 1989 as part of the Milanese contingent. And there's Lebanese designer Elie Saab, who does a robust business for his gowns. Perhaps it's only fitting for what appears to be couture's ever more global future.

wsj.com

 

[JunyaSchick]

This issue comes and goes every now and then.

But one thing for sure is that the crisis and the geographical change of the have acted as a recycling of the concept of haute couture and an adaptation to the moment we live in.

 

[Crying Diamonds]

"It's like customizing your life; it means uniqueness."
Coming from the man who designs the same dress for every collection.

I think it's good that couture is supposedly having a comeback, but I can't help but worry that it will be trivialised and the taste levels of the new money clientele may effect the design.

 

[wild roses]

I think it's good that couture is supposedly having a comeback, but I can't help but worry that it will be trivialised and the taste levels of the new money clientele may effect the design.

I find that statement ignorant and ridiculous. True, there are plenty of new money folks who truly have no notion of taste, ie the Kardashians. However, it was the new money movers and shakers that made many art movements acceptable while old money folks were turning up their noses and gagging: Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, etc, etc.

Same goes for fashion. Babe Paley, Jackie O, and Grace Kelly didn't come from old money families. All of them came from families who only the previous generation had joined the respectable social registers. Yet, none of them are considered tasteless by any measure. It's also worth noting, all 3 did their OWN thing and didn't follow the fashion conventions of old money woman.

So, frankly, I'm not worried about the future of haute couture. And if the new tastemakers force the designers into "trivializing" new directions, that's fine by me too because that's the way change happens and art stays alive and refreshed.

 

[fashionista-ta]

"It's like customizing your life; it means uniqueness."
Coming from the man who designs the same dress for every collection.

It's amazing how I manage to customize my life and dress in a modern way without ever coming within a lightyear of haute couture.

 

[Crying Diamonds]

I find that statement ignorant and ridiculous. True, there are plenty of new money folks who truly have no notion of taste, ie the Kardashians. However, it was the new money movers and shakers that made many art movements acceptable while old money folks were turning up their noses and gagging: Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, etc, etc.

Same goes for fashion. Babe Paley, Jackie O, and Grace Kelly didn't come from old money families. All of them came from families who only the previous generation had joined the respectable social registers. Yet, none of them are considered tasteless by any measure. It's also worth noting, all 3 did their OWN thing and didn't follow the fashion conventions of old money woman.

So, frankly, I'm not worried about the future of haute couture. And if the new tastemakers force the designers into "trivializing" new directions, that's fine by me too because that's the way change happens and art stays alive and refreshed.

It should be clear that 'new money' refers more to an attitude towards money than who your grandpapa was. It's a taste level that applies to those who know not how to be discreet with their wealth.
If, for one second, we leap over to the other very relevant thread, Haute Couture Clients, member Fontenrose posted a very intertesting article from reuters.com here.This is what I refer to when I worry about the direction Haute Couture may take.

 

[BetteT]

That article states that the number of Haute Couture houses has doubled, from 6 to 12 in the last few years. So, I wondered who the current Haute Couture designers were and found this:

Source: Wikipedia

Members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture

For the Spring-Summer 2012 season the official list of members is:

Official members
Adeline André — Anne Valérie Hash — Atelier Gustavolins — Chanel — Christian Dior — Christophe Josse — Franck Sorbier — Givenchy — Jean Paul Gaultier — Maurizio Galante — Stéphane Rolland — Giambattista Valli

Correspondent members (foreign)
Azzedine Alaïa — Elie Saab — Giorgio Armani — Valentino — Versace — Sir Jason Twist (coming back in SS2012)

Guest members
Alexis Mabille — Alexandre Vauthier — Bouchra Jarrar — Iris Van Herpen — Julien Fournié — Maxime Simoens — Yiqing Yin (new in season SS2012)

Jewelry
Boucheron — Chanel Joaillerie — Chaumet — Dior Joaillerie — Van Cleef & Arpels

Accessories
Loulou de la Falaise — Massaro — On Aura Tout Vu

 

[wild roses]

It should be clear that 'new money' refers more to an attitude towards money than who your grandpapa was. It's a taste level that applies to those who know not how to be discreet with their wealth.

We are both right. I was using one definition, you were using the other. Various dictionary definitions:

from urban dictionary:

Someone who is rich but does not come from a weathly background or family history.

or

people who have recently acquired money and feel the need to show it off by purchasing flashy houses, cars, clothing and jewelry. Generally tacky.

or

A family that has just joined the upper class from a lower class, mostly middle.

or

New Money is a term for people who made or earned their wealth on their own accord, they were not born into a wealthy family or grew up in wealthy culture. Sometimes used disparagingly by Old Money, in reference to the lack of refinement or sophistication of New Money people.

or, last but not least

An individual who brings something different to the norm. Usually with regards to business. A revoulutionary business person. Ceases to stagnate

.

From wiki:

The nouveau riche (French for "new rich", pronounced [nu.vo ʁiʃ]), or new money, comprise those who have acquired considerable wealth within their own generation.[1] The term is generally used to emphasize that the individual was previously part of a lower socioeconomic rank, and that such wealth has provided the means for the acquisition of goods or luxuries that were previously unobtainable. The term can also be used in a derogatory fashion, for the purposes of social class distinction: Here, "nouveau riche" describes persons with newfound wealth as being vulgar, in lacking the experience or value system to utilize wealth in the same manner as those of "old money" (persons whose families have been wealthy for multiple generations).

from google basic search:

People who have recently acquired wealth, typically those perceived as ostentatious or lacking in good taste

But I still stick to my claim. For every Kim Kardashian, there's going to be a Gertrude Stein or Jackie O.