What is couture. Haute couture
Fashion houses and designers every season offer us something new: color, styles, combinations of clothes. The most important people from the world of fashion gather for world shows, fashion weeks are a real event. But during the year, designers release several collections, and not every one of them gets on the catwalks. Let's see what are the names of clothing collections and how they differ from each other.
Haute Couture or haute couture is the highest level in the work of a designer and a fashion house. Haute couture items set all fashion trends, in the process of creating collections, exclusive items are created that are sewn by hand. Moreover, the fabrics that are used in the haute couture collection must be specially created for these models.
High fashion is more like art than fashion wear.
The very concept of haute couture appeared in the middle of the 19th century and is associated with the name of designer Charles Frederick Worth. In 1858, he opened the House of Models in Paris and was the first to start separating collections by season. Also in his atelier, clients could choose the outfit they liked, which was then sewn individually to their measurements.
Ten years later, in 1868, the Paris haute couture syndicate introduced haute couture rules that are still in effect today. So, for example, Haute Couture collections can only be created by Parisian fashion houses that have received a special certificate. The fashion house must have a staff of at least 20 people, and annually they must release at least fifty new models of clothing. Despite the fact that some fashion houses, such as and also create haute couture collections, although they are not Parisian. But you can't call them Haute Couture collections in Paris.
Valentino Haute Couture Collection
Haute Couture Week in Paris is one of the most significant events in the fashion industry. It takes place twice a year - in July and January. It is worth noting that all haute couture clothes are still created for each client according to individual sizes and sewn only by hand. Outfits can cost a lot of money, so they are ordered for some significant events. But they are worn only a couple of times, then they can go into a personal haute couture collection or become a museum exhibit. At the last Paris Fashion Week for 1 million euros. But it is unlikely that they will buy it in order to wear it in the cold season.
Haute Couture Collection by Jean Paul Gaultier at Paris Couture Week in July, Haute Couture Collection by Viktor & Rolf at Paris Couture Week in January
Let's take a look at what prêt-a-porter (pret-a-porter) is, or in literal translation - “ready-made dress”. The main difference from haute couture models is that the models are sewn according to standard measurements and are sold in large quantities in boutiques and stores. Pret-a-porter collections are the main source of income for designers and fashion houses.
Marc Jacob's prêt-a-porte collection, Chanel fashion show
Fashion weeks of prêt-a-porter collections are also held twice a year - in April and October, and models participate in the shows for the next season. That is, in October 2015 we will see collections for spring-summer 2016. Such fashion weeks are held in many major cities of the world, but Milan, Paris and New York are still the most popular.
Michael Kors Collection at New York Fashion Week
The creation of collections of clothes that are ready to wear is associated with the development of technology and mass production in the 50s of the 20th century. In these collections, new materials began to be used, such as nylon and kapron, which from time to time began to displace silk and wool. The first designer to create ready-to-wear collections was Pierre Cardin.
A ready-to-wear collection can only be a catwalk option, or it can go on sale
You need to understand that prêt-a-porter collections are sewn in two categories. The first is intended only for showing on the podium, and the second goes into mass production and it is she who is worn "in ordinary" life. These collections necessarily reflect all the fashion trends of the coming season, bring something new. Sometimes, items from the ready-to-wear collection can be created in an individual exclusive order according to the sketches of fashion designers and can compete with Haute Couture models.
Pre-fall are intermediate collections of designers, literally translated “before autumn”. This collection reflects the main trends of the coming autumn-winter season. Usually they are not shown at shows, but immediately appear in the brand's catalog. Sometimes fashion houses hold special shows in December-January, since sales start in June and are, as it were, “trial”, pilot before the sale of the main collection. The items in the fall collection are relevant and practical clothes that can be easily worn in everyday life.
Pre-fall 2015 off-season collection by Valentino, Pre-fall collection by Just Cavalli
But the pilot collection before selling things from the spring-summer collections is called the Resort or Cruise collections, the so-called resort or cruise collection. This is also an off-season collection, but it reflects the trends of spring and summer. Like pre-fall, he rarely shows up, although some designers do special shows for the Resort collection. For example, you can look at the 2016 cruise collections of brands and.
Gucci Resort Collection 2015
Cruise collections usually include swimwear, cocktail dresses, accessories and other summer pieces. These are full-fledged collections that are shown to the public or printed in the catalog from May to June. These collections go on sale in November. Initially, resort collections created fashion houses for wealthy clients who preferred to spend winter time in warm countries. And since it was difficult to find summer things in winter, designers began to create separate Resort or Cruise collections.
Cruise Collection 2015 by Chloé
Now you can easily distinguish designer collections from each other and always stay up to date with fashion events. Do not forget to subscribe to the blog so as not to miss interesting and useful news and articles about fashion and style.
1
What is couture and who wears it?
Singer Beyoncé on the red carpet of the Met Gala 2015 in New York
It is easy to guess that haute couture is not a ubiquitous phenomenon, since it is worn exclusively on red carpets and “hung out” on the catwalks. The name haute couture literally means "high sewing", in practice it means that the best professionals in the industry sew couture lines, and by hand. Each dress is completely unique, because it is really created according to the figure of a particular person. It can take from one to ten weeks to sew one model. Couture is worn by the most privileged class of our society: movie stars, leaders of the music charts, top models, political elite and chief editors of fashion glossy.
2 How does beautiful clothes become couture?
Maria Grazia Chiuri
Sewing something large and expensive with the availability of materials is easy. But getting haute couture status is not a task for beginners. The fashion house needs to literally petition if it wants to have a two-word French prefix and a pass to the world of truly haute couture. First you need to be approved by the French Ministry of Industry according to the criteria that are sent to the fashion house. If the brand meets the requirements of the ministry, then it is allowed to create, and under strict supervision and with annual taxes.
3 How much is the cheapest and most expensive haute couture dress?
The starting price for the dress is €9000. Dresses that were on the catwalk may cost less due to the fact that they are not made to measure for the client. The price of the most expensive haute couture outfit will remain a mystery to all of us. The most expensive item in haute couture is always a wedding dress, its cost can reach hundreds of thousands of euros. The price depends on the materials used and the hours spent on manufacturing.
4 Is the main profit of the brand from the couture line?
Gisele Bundchen, 2014
Despite sky-high prices, high fashion is not considered a profitable business. This, of course, is connected with the global crisis, and not all fashion houses could afford to produce haute couture before. Most well-known brands lose money on these collections and often sell them at market value, at a loss. The real gold mine of any brand is in leather goods, perfumes and cosmetics. For example, the net profit of clothes from Chanel in the crisis 2015 amounted to $1.34 billion, and the income from the sale of cosmetics amounted to $2.6 billion. Of course, it is cheaper to buy perfume or cream, rather than a dress as a gift on March 8th.
5 Why then arrange chic shows, if it is so unprofitable?
Fashion designers spend huge sums of money per show — the average fashion show costs $40,000 — to showcase clothes that no one will buy. The show itself is started not for the purpose of commercial gain, but for the purpose of PR, for prestige. In principle, a fashion show is a demonstration of the designer's vision of the collection he created, we are offered to watch the show and understand the purpose of the thing. Each collection has a theme, for example, Dior this year presented models in the aesthetics of avant-garde art and arranged a ball with waiters who were completely painted like clouds. Models from the Chanel Haute Couture collection will not be sold complete with a veil with roses on top and Kaia Gerber to boot - everyone will forget about her, and the dress will go to the boutique.
6 Are there countries where the demand for luxury clothing is highest?
Meryl Streep ("Florence Foster Jenkins", "Florence Foster Jenkins")
Oddly enough, yes. China, the countries of the Middle East, mainly the United Arab Emirates, and India. In fact, the real competition between haute couture brands becomes visible when a major award or ceremony, such as the Oscars or the Met Gala Ball, approaches. Brands vied with each other to offer stars to wear them on the red carpet and after parties, periodically this provokes unpleasant incidents. In this situation, before last year's Oscars, actress Meryl Streep was involved. Initially, its representatives agreed with the management of the Chanel brand on sewing a dress worth €100,000, but when the production process was already launched, the order was canceled - according to Karl Lagerfeld, in addition to the cost of the dress, which is listed as a gift, the fashion house demanded money for going to him into the light. As a result, the actress shone in the dress of the Lebanese couturier Elie Saab, Lagerfeld was offended, Streep demanded an apology for the slander and did not receive them.
7 Do I need to buy haute couture, then to sell it for big money?
Jean Paul Gaultier and Burlesque Queen Dita Von Teese at Paris Fashion Week 2014
You can buy, wear, store, pass on and throw away haute couture clothes if you can afford it. For big money, most likely, you will buy it in a boutique - it is customary in the fashion industry to invest in vintage. But it’s unlikely that you can sell an outfit from last year’s Zuhair Murad collection for completely crazy amounts – of course, if you are not Madonna or Margot Robbie. If you figure it out, even the most expensive clothes are needed for wear and pleasure, so if you don’t have the opportunity to wear haute couture soon, then you can always enjoy the outfits on the catwalks.
Most of the terms related to fashion and tailoring are of French origin. The experience of Paris, as a dictator of fashion, inspires respect. The terms haute couture (haute couture) and pret-a-porter (pret-a-porter) are often found. It is worth dwelling on them in a little more detail.
"Haute couture" - sewing art of the highest quality. In a narrower sense, it is the unique work of the leading Parisian fashion salons that set the tone for international fashion. This is French high fashion. Naturally, "high fashion" exists in other countries, as, for example, in Italy - alta moda. “Haute couture” also includes individual unique models that are produced in famous fashion salons by order of the client.
"Ready-to-wear" means "ready to wear." Clothing models included in this group are produced in large quantities and sold in small boutiques (boutique) belonging to fashion salons of "high fashion", as well as large department stores. The difference in prices between the haute couture model of a fashion salon and the ready-to-wear model of the same company is significant. "Ready-to-wear" is also the name given to clothing models created outside of fashion stores for mass production, which were previously called confection - ready-made dress. This name usually corresponds to that part of mass production in which the fashion of the current moment is most acutely manifested and which is not produced in huge quantities, like ordinary unified mass products.
The concept of "haute couture" appeared in the middle of the 19th century, when the first fashion salons in today's sense arose and fashion designers appeared, often surrounded by a mystical halo. There is no doubt that these sorcerers, who created masterpieces from silk, velvet, lace and pearls, focused primarily on high-ranking ladies. One of the brightest personalities of the era of crinolines was the Englishman Worth, who conquered Parisian society and even Eugene, the wife of Napoleon III, with his ideas. Thanks to her countless toilets, Evgenia entered the history of fashion. The origin of "high fashion" is associated with the name of Worth.
The fantastic creations of Worth and his colleagues were quoted so highly not only because of the expensive materials and excellent workmanship. The most important was the name of the creator, who, by "signing" the dress, made it a work of art, and the owner of this toilet secured a high position in society. In 1868, the Paris Committee of the Trade Union of the Clothing Industry was created, which to this day unites the most prominent fashion salons and firms in Paris and resolves legal issues related to fashion. But fashion has not yet been recognized as an art, equal among others. Only in 1943 was a law passed, according to which fashion designers received equal rights with figures of literature and art.
After Worth, the banner of "high fashion" passed to other fashion designers. It was necessary to have a great talent in order to be able to reflect the ideas of his time in clothes, to form the image of a woman (and a man) according to his ideal. At the beginning of the 20th century, Poiret reigned in the decadent salons. In his fiery orange and purple oriental sketches, modernist flexibility and drama were manifested. For almost half a century, the legendary Madame Chanel guessed the desires of women. In the 1920s, she dressed women in ordinary gray, black and beige shirt dresses, in knitted pullovers and cardigans, adorned them with fake jewelry, allowed them to wear cotton dresses, which until then only maids had worn. She immortalized her name with the perfume "Chanel N 5", and in the 50s gave her admirers the famous Chanel suit.
In the 1930s, the swords of Madame Vione and Madame Schiaparelli were crossed in the arena of "high fashion". The first of them promoted the diagonal cut of the dress, the second introduced square shoulders, which for 15 years were considered an indispensable element in clothing. Only in 1947, Christian Dior abandoned them and thus caused a real revolution in fashion. The silhouette proposed by Dior, with an accentuated waist and a long loose skirt, was diametrically opposed to the short and angular silhouette that prevailed at that time and, obviously, corresponded to the post-war ideals of a woman. In 1955, the sensational “robsak” appeared, that is, a bag dress. In the 60s, the miniskirt made a splash, which for ten years set the tone in fashion. The name André Courage is closely associated with the miniskirt. An architect by education, he strove to introduce constructive elements, light colors, geometric surfaces into clothes, believing that he was creating the fashion of the future. In the 60s and 70s, without a doubt, the models of Yves Saint Laurent enjoyed the greatest success. His collections are influenced by abstract art, nostalgic mood, gypsy romance, military uniforms, the sands of the Sahara and the steppes of Kyrgyzstan. But along with fantasy, it also offers classics.
The French art of fashion, with its tradition and history, has always been a spectacle that attracts a large number of reporters, movie stars and wealthy buyers.
"My dresses are ephemeral pieces of architecture designed to celebrate the proportions of the female body"
Christian Dior
All the women of the world are incredibly delighted with just one word "Haute couture". Where did this concept come from, and what does it really mean? haute couture- translated from French literally "high fashion / high sewing craft." That is, haut (e) is read according to the rules of the French language “from” - and means high (th) / upper (th) / expensive (th) / significant (th).
Couture in translation - tailoring, sewing craft, fashion. High fashion includes the creations of leading fashion houses that set the tone for all international fashion, as well as unique models that are produced in famous fashion salons by order of the client, in a single copy. The very concept of "haute couture" appeared in the middle of the XIX century. Then the first fashion salons and the first fashion designers began to appear. haute couture owes its appearance to Charles Frederick Worth. In 1858, this English fashion designer opened his House of Models in Paris and was the first to distribute collections by season. Today, Haute Couture houses include: Coco Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior, Jeanne Lanvin, Hubert de Givenchy, Guy Laroche, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Ralph Rucci, Gianfranco Ferre, Gianni Versace, Valentino Garavani, John Galliano and others. The number of haute couture houses does not change often, and almost always stays around 20. The reason is a very tough selection and extremely high requirements for candidates. If you want to say haute couture houses, fashion houses and other synonyms in French, then remember the following phrases: les grandes maisons de couture, les maisons de haute couture, les maisons de mode, les grandes maisons de mode. How talk about fashion in french, you can find out by reading below short top in french written by me personally.
La mode francaise
La France est la capitale de la mode mondiale, des parfums raffinés et des designers talentieux. Les noms Chanel, Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, Givenchy sont associés à l'ère de la Haute Couture quand les vetements ont devenu l'art.
coco chanel est la personne la plus importante dansl'histoire de la mode du XXe siècle. Chanel a crée une petite robe noire et des chapeaux pour les femmes extraordinaires. Un tailleur "de Chanel" est devenu un symbole d'une nouvelle génération: fait en tweed, avec une jupe étroite, une veste sans col avec des boutons dorés. Coco Chanel a inventé beaucoup de vetements modernes, qui nous semblent tout à fait ordinaires: un sac en bandoulière et des pantalons pour les femmes. En plus, l'un des parfums les plus connus dans le monde est le Chanel No. 5.
Christian Dior a créé un concept entièrement nouveau dans sa première collection en 1947. C’étaient des robes romantiques en soie et en mousseline. Il aussi aimé des parfums. Il y a totalement 97 parfums Dior, le premier d'entre eux a été lancé en 1947 - Christian Dior Miss Dior.
La maison de Givenchy a été fondée en 1952 par M. Hubert de Givenchy. Il a été le premier couturier qui a inventé le terme "prêt-à-porter". Audrey Hepburn présentait cette maison, ses personnages sur l'écran portaient toujours des robes Givenchy.
Yves Saint Laurentétait le successeur de la maison Dior. C'est grâce à lui la garde-robe féminine a revêti le caractère masculin: vestes en cuir, bottes à l'écuyère et des costumes pour les femmes. On le nomme le fondateur du style unisexe.
Although such a concept as “haute couture” is known to many, some still do not fully understand what it means, and even more so what it is for, in general.
In order to find out how haute couture was born, what has the right to be called haute couture, and how it affects fashion in general, you need to go to Paris, and only to Paris, because that is where Parisian Haute Couture Syndicate.
Haute couture originated in the middle of the 19th century, when the first fashion salons began to appear.
English fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth conquered Parisian society with his masterpieces. His chic products were quoted so highly not only because of the expensive material, handmade work and excellent workmanship. Each masterpiece of Worth was signed by the master himself, and the road to high society was opened to the lady who wore such a dress.
In 1868, the Paris Committee of the Trade Union of the Garment Industry was created, and already in 1943 a law was passed according to which fashion designers "haute couture" received equal rights with figures of literature and art.
What creations of fashion designers has the right to be called "haute couture".
According to the Paris Syndicate of Haute Couture, haute couture products must be handmade, no less than 70%. This is mainly achieved by using embroidery and appliqués. All products are sewn from fabric specially made for them, which is extremely expensive and of high quality. That is why haute couture is so expensive.
Each Fashion House has a staff of artisans, the number of which must be at least 20 people. Thanks to the work of these high-class specialists, unique lace, pleats, jewelry, buttons, jewelry and other accessories are made. It can take approximately 100-150 hours of intense manual labor to create one outfit. Creating an evening dress with embroidery requires several thousand hours of manual work.
Twice a year, the Fashion House is obliged to present to the international press a show of at least 50 haute couture models. Usually the High Fashion Weeks avoid any connection with the ready-to-wear shows, although they are presented by the same houses. Shows take place in January and July, usually at the Croiselle du Louvre.
High Fashion Weeks are attended by the richest and most famous people in the world, who can easily afford to buy a dress for 100 thousand dollars and even more.
To obtain haute couture certification, a fashion house must be located in the capital of France. Belonging to a Haute Couture House is protected by law, and the list of Haute Couture Houses is compiled by a special commission under the French Ministry of Industry. Foreign couturiers can only be corresponding members of the Syndicate. So, for example, fashion houses Versace, Valentino can be invited to High Fashion Week, but due to the fact that they do not meet all the criteria, they are called not “haute couture”, but simply “couture”.
What is haute couture for?
I am sure many have asked this question, because most of the outfits are absolutely unwearable, and due to their astronomical price, they are still out of reach!
The whole point is this - the hype and showiness of such events provides an excellent opportunity for designers to raise the image of their homes and attract as many customers as possible. After the Haute Couture weeks, Pret-a-Porte shows are the main source of income. Striving for the luxury, glitz and glamor seen at the High Fashion shows, admirers of the designer's talent are buying up his ready-to-wear collections.
And of course, Haute Couture is preparing a springboard for ready-to-wear creations, it is from there that designers draw new ideas, images, colors and silhouettes.
Haute couture outfits show off the stars on the red carpet with pleasure.
Dior Haute Couture Spring 2010
