Haute couture stands or translates to “high sewing" or "high dressmaking" or "high fashion") and is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is constructed by hand from start to finish, made from high-quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable sewers - often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques. Couture translates literally from French as "dressmaking" but may also refer to fashion, sewing, or needlework and is also used as a common abbreviation of haute couture and refers to the same thing in spirit. Haute translates literally to "high". An haute couture garment is always made for an individual client, tailored specifically for the wearer's measurements and body stance. Considering the amount of time, money, and skill allotted to each completed piece, haute couture garments are also described as having no price tag: budget is not relevant. Wikipedia definition
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These days it seems to be about exaggeration and how big of a train a dress may have or how much beading on nude tulle is done to build a garment. No question haute couture is for a rarefied world of women who can afford quite literally anything and not ask the price of anything. With this in mind there is no reason for standing room only audiences made up of wannabes so called influencers who have not the vaguest clue of what they are looking at and to some degree I blame the designers.
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Currently, there is a fine line between ready to wear and haute couture at least from the outside but its biggest difference lies is what you can’t see on the inside of the so called shell. Moons ago, haute couture was a laboratory for what was to come in ready to wear … not in total but usually there was a hint of a trend started in haute couture that filtered down into the ready wear collections by the same designers. Now it’s just an utter free for all … dresses that can only be worn when standing even while being transported from home to an event a ( standing up in the back of a pickup truck) and never mind sitting down, that dare the wearer to wear them and not in a good way. More is better and bigger is better and sadly we have a so called fashion media that is either written in praise of big advertisers or illiterate in the world of fashion and that impacts how haute couture is seen by readers since they speak of venue and bullshit rather than the fine points of the clothes.
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What brought this on is Valentino where Pierpaolo Piccioli showed dresses that were as if inflated and floating in air and yet they were dresses that would swallow up a wearer. Meticulously finished and made but dresses that that could pass for Thanksgiving Day parade floats. What came to mind were the times of Sao Schlumberger and her ilk as well as the Italian designers of the 60’s and 70s who surely knew a thing or two about entrance making clothes and construction. Some of what was shown echoed of Balenciaga on steroids and some of the great 50s and 60s coutouriers who also knew a thing or 2 about statement making clothes. The difference is that in those years the clothes were worn, bought and chronicled in newspapers and magazines and not just on the red carpet. Today the clothes are practically unwearable as a rule and worn publicly only when loaned. By the way as if the dresses and prints weren’t enough why did you need that absurd make up and printed hose?
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Haute couture is all about the art and craft of fashion and not to be critiqued the same way one would for ready to wear and yet the clothes force it upon the reviewer to write as if these clothes would ever hang on a rail in any store. How sad that the skillsets that are taught and still used reflect a time where the clothes reflected not only great design, but style and creativity as well. Nowadays it seems to be of a sheep mentality rather than of extravagance, aspiration and awe. It is most certainly not about bigger is better and sadly the aspect of haute couture day clothes has fallen by the wayside for practically all of the so called coutouriers. We should mourn the loss as we have lost so much in such a short time.
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