Haute Couture is the place where designers can satisfy their creative passion, and are the opportunity to enjoy the most luxurious dresses. Before having a festive season with fashion, look back at the high-fashion picture in the 2-century history.
When the Haute Couture season arrives, admirers admire the eye-catching fashion collections from many cult brands. To mark a new season about to begin, here are some basic things you need to know about the high-end fashion dream from France.
If translated literally, in French, "couture" means "sewing clothes" and "haute" means "high-class". This high-end item is only produced for one special customer. Founded in the 19th century, Haute Couture is a special title created by the French Government. Each year, the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture (High Fashion Alliance) will provide a list of official fashion houses that meet the following requirements.
Preparing for the performance of the Dior house in 1947. (Photo: Couturedesignlondon)
In order to become an official fashion brand of Haute Couture, members must meet certain conditions. They have to design clothes according to orders from private customers, with more than 1 sample and use a sewing factory with at least 15 full-time employees.
In addition, the members must also have 20 full-time technical staff at one of the workshops. Finally, fashion houses of Haute Couture must present a collection of no less than 50 designs to the public each season of the year, in January and July.
(Photo: Justluxe)
If the above conditions are not met, the fashion brand will be removed from the list. This happened with the Givenchy house in the spring - summer of 2013. There is no brand, no matter how influential, can break the rules given since 1945.
People often confuse the two concepts of Couture and Haute Couture. If Haute Couture means high-end tailoring and was founded by the French government, Couture is only used to refer to hand-made and unique costumes.
In 1946, there were 106 members on the Haute Couture list. However, in the post-World War II period, many brands could not meet the conditions given by Haute Couture. They are forced to mass produce and reduce the number of customers for high-end fashion.
Up to now, this list has 96 houses, according to the official Haute Couture website of France. In it, there are typical names such as:
High-end fashion houses manage and divide tailors according to specific tasks. In the documentary Dior and I, Dior's tailor house is divided into flou houses (for soft material such as skirts) and tailleur houses (for suits and garments).
(Photo: TheNewYorktimes)
In each tailor's home, the main employees are supervised by a head. This person is also responsible for managing the auditions because brands must provide samples for customers. For some brands, like Christian Dior , each outfit requires at least 3 samples.
(Photo: Grazia)
In addition to the regular participation of the press, the majority of viewers are customers or their representatives. Marjorie Harvey, wife of the famous host Steve Harvey, is a loyal audience of high-end fashion alongside many other big names like Daphne Guinness, Lynn Wyatt and author Danielle Steel. Not all customers are invited, but the ones who pay the most and the highest family members are often present at the show.
(Photo: Popsugar)
If you have any questions about why Chanel 's performance is always the longest, it's because of the number of employees working at its tailor's home. Each costume is usually created by a main group, from the number of costumes appearing at the show, we can see how big Chanel's size is.
(Photo: Chanel)
While Dior only has 2, Chanel has 4 sewing houses, including 2 soft tailors and 2 thick ones. There are many collections, typical examples are Spring 2015, made up of the hands of 100 tailors.
Haute Couture is the "stage" for designers to show their endless creativity. In addition to the most advanced high-end costumes, fashion catwalks in Haute Couture also belong to a different level with countless themes such as Casino casinos, aircraft compartments, tropical forests ...
Chanel Collection - Winter collection in the Casino casino scene. (Photo: Dazed)
Chanel's Spring-Summer stage in 2012 re-modeled the cabin model. (Photo: Editorial)
The stage is filled with natural scenery in the Spring-Summer 2015 performance of Elie Saab house. (Photo: Bogaria)
Designer Karl Lagerfeld once again made the grave of admiration when setting up the stage of Autumn - Winter 2016 for Fendi brand at Trevi fountain in Rome. (Photo: Fashionmagazine)
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