What is Haute Couture?
Haute couture is a French phrase used to refer to high fashion. Literally, the phrase refers to high dressmaking or sewing. It can refer specifically to French fashion, or more generally to any unique and elegant design made for specific wealthy clients.
Haute Couture Designs
Designs labeled as haute couture are handmade for individual clients. They are made from expensive fabrics, including high quality silk, fine wools, cashmere, leather, suede, and furs. The couture houses that produce these fashions carefully guard the secrets of the designs, and even the colors used in the designs. New haute couture fashions are usually introduced at fashion shows held in Paris during January and July. A few of the most famous couture houses are Chanel, Yves St. Laurent, and Dior.
History of Haute Couture
Haute couture is intimately connected to fashion developments that have occurred in Paris during the last few centuries. Rose Bertin became the first internationally known fashion designer when she designed for Marie Antoinette in the 18th century. Since then French fashions have been widely followed throughout the fashion world.
In the 19th century Charles Frederick Worth became the first modern couturier. Worth is credited with being the first to show his fashions on live models, as well as with creating the modern fashion show. He founded an association of haute couture houses that specified criteria a designer needed to meet in order to qualify as a couturier. Today in France the term "haute couture" remains regulated by the government, and rigid criteria must be met for a design house to use that term.
Haute Couture Finances
It is incredibly expensive to run an haute couture fashion house. The costs of the fabrics and craftsmen needed to create the fashions are high. Running international level fashion shows is very expensive, especially when supermodels must be hired to showcase fashions.
All of the costs related to developing the haute couture fashions cannot usually be profitably recouped by selling custom designs to a few hundred wealthy women. However, the fashion shows attract a huge amount of international attention that is used in selling other products that carry the name of the haute couture house. Those other products include ready-to-wear clothing, perfume, and jewelry. The real profits made by the haute couture houses come through mass market international sales. There are also substantial profits made through licensing arrangements.
Today the image of the haute couture house remains widely known, but there are probably only about 2,000 women in the world who actually buy and wear the original fashions. In order to generate publicity for the design house, designers frequently loan clothes to high visibility women like movie stars. Prices for an original design begin at around $20,000.
