The term “haute couture” is French. Haute means “high” or “elegant” Couture literally means “sewing,” but has come to indicate the business of designing, creating, and selling custom-made, high fashion women's clothes.
Haute Couture is Protected by French Law.
Glittering Names
The syndicate has about 18 members, including such fashion giants as Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, and Pierre Cardin. The houses generate more than $1 billion in annual sales and employ close to 5,000 people, including 2,200 seamstresses. Workers often specialize in one area, such as feathers, fabric, buttons, shoes, etc. Before World War II, 35,000 people worked at couture houses.
Staggering Prices
Made from scratch for each customer, haute couture clothing typically requires three fittings. It usually takes from 100 to 400 hours to make one dress, costing from $26,000 to over $100,000. A tailored suit starts at $16,000, an evening gown at $60,000.
A Small Market
Today only 2,000 women in the world buy couture clothes; 60% are American. Only 200 are regular customers. Often, designers will loan clothes to movie stars or other public figures for publicity.
During fashion's “golden age,” after World War II, some 15,000 women wore couture. Socialites such as the Duchess of Windsor, Babe Paley, and Gloria Guiness would order whole collections at a time.
Despite the small market, designers maintain haute couture operations partly because the prestige helps sell other products, such as perfume, cosmetics, and their ready-to-wear lines available in stores.
The Real Clients Of Haute Couture
Among the clients of Haute Couture are also collectors, investing in fashion as those who invest in other objects of art, and different kind of things according to their customs, their culture or their way of life and even the way of understanding life. Overall the customer who demands Haute Couture, desires the real traditional luxury but with the novelty of the latest collection and even the unique design for her.
Today there is a growing number of young, famous or not that promise long life to the Haute Couture women group. Not only the future of haute couture is in the hands of the new generations, thanks to the passion that continues to arouse, when five continents were once almost 2 and a very limited number of people-as well as the taste for fashion that we wraps all around us but we do not realize, and even investors and collectors who have seen in Haute Couture a love that worth pursuing. The real consumers of Haute Couture are varied, but all have a common passion.
Only fashion companies judged by the Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris (the Paris Ministry for Industry) as meeting specific qualifying criteria may use the label “Haute Couture,” or “high dressmaking.” A member of the Federation of Couture Houses must:
- Design made-to-order for private clients, with one or more fittings;
- Have a workshop (atelier) in Paris that employs at least fifteen staff members full-time;
- Have at least twenty full-time technical people, in at least one workshop (atelier); and present a collection of at least fifty original designs to the public every fashion season (twice, in January and July of each year), of both day and evening garments.
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| Couture Collection |
Glittering Names
The syndicate has about 18 members, including such fashion giants as Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, and Pierre Cardin. The houses generate more than $1 billion in annual sales and employ close to 5,000 people, including 2,200 seamstresses. Workers often specialize in one area, such as feathers, fabric, buttons, shoes, etc. Before World War II, 35,000 people worked at couture houses.
Staggering Prices
Made from scratch for each customer, haute couture clothing typically requires three fittings. It usually takes from 100 to 400 hours to make one dress, costing from $26,000 to over $100,000. A tailored suit starts at $16,000, an evening gown at $60,000.
A Small Market
Today only 2,000 women in the world buy couture clothes; 60% are American. Only 200 are regular customers. Often, designers will loan clothes to movie stars or other public figures for publicity.
During fashion's “golden age,” after World War II, some 15,000 women wore couture. Socialites such as the Duchess of Windsor, Babe Paley, and Gloria Guiness would order whole collections at a time.
Despite the small market, designers maintain haute couture operations partly because the prestige helps sell other products, such as perfume, cosmetics, and their ready-to-wear lines available in stores.
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| Among the clients of Haute Couture are also collectors. |
The Real Clients Of Haute Couture
Among the clients of Haute Couture are also collectors, investing in fashion as those who invest in other objects of art, and different kind of things according to their customs, their culture or their way of life and even the way of understanding life. Overall the customer who demands Haute Couture, desires the real traditional luxury but with the novelty of the latest collection and even the unique design for her.
Today there is a growing number of young, famous or not that promise long life to the Haute Couture women group. Not only the future of haute couture is in the hands of the new generations, thanks to the passion that continues to arouse, when five continents were once almost 2 and a very limited number of people-as well as the taste for fashion that we wraps all around us but we do not realize, and even investors and collectors who have seen in Haute Couture a love that worth pursuing. The real consumers of Haute Couture are varied, but all have a common passion.
