haute cou·ture : expensive, fashionable clothes produced by leading fashion houses by The Oxford Dictionary!
One of the key words in this definition is EXPENSIVE! So, my question to all these designers who think couture should be a more democratic pursuit would be... have the prices been lowered to appeal to a larger and more varied audience?
It is a known
fact to most that couture is made to measure so one can be reasonably sure that
the clothes will be made in everything from a size 2 to size 22 with all the modifications
requested by the client and suggested by the designer.
Nowhere does
it say that since fashion has become a spectator sport that it must also
celebrate every size and shape and age on the runway. The runway was the one place
that made customers aspire, dream and lust for what they see. So, I ask you how
many women aspire to have jiggling thighs seen under transparent gowns and their midriffs bulging out of side
cutouts or muffin tops on a gown or looking larger than they are? Where is the
fantasy in that? Couture was never a democratic pursuit and will never be until
it no longer exists!
Designers’ words
cannot make it so and larger models cannot make it so ... it is what it is and
it isn’t meant for everyone in style or size but it is only for the very very
rich of any size who can afford the “cost of admission!”
For the
greater part of its existence couture was the harbinger of what was to come in
the ready to wear versions from that brand or in other words it was the laboratory
for fashion created by the “mad scientists” who suddenly had no restrictions in
respect to cost. Now we have clothes and rhetoric ... few day clothes and
tonnage of evening looks for a pandemic era. Where is the fantasy other than
imagining where you might wear any of this? Afford it? Or want it?
Reviewers no
longer offer their opinions since most are too unknowledgeable to have one but
they have become bull horns for the designers who hope to explain away the
reason for his or her oeuvre or regurgitations of their press releases ... no
matter how esoteric. My point being they are no longer reviews they are merely
interviews with designers where the bulk of said “review” is in the designer’s
words and not in those of the reviewer.
Who can answer
these questions for me who agrees with MY OPINION about the state of couture?
As a long time follower of the couture I totally agree with you. Remember when Town and Country had those glorious spreads of page after page of the seasonal couture. W magazine was full of stunning illustrations. End of an age for folk that remember. xxdt
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