Salut!
I recently read an opinion piece from the Business of Fashion (one of my favourite resources) that made me question the importance of haute couture in the world of fashion (you can check out the article here: http://www.businessoffashion.com/2013/01/colins-column-is-haute-couture-poised-for-reinvention-or-irrelevance-3.html)
For those who are unfamiliar with the term “haute couture”, I’ll provide you with a brief explanation: a direct French translation for the term is “high sewing” or “high fashion”. With a target consumer base of the rich and famous, haute couture is usually made to order for a specific customer with a high attention to detailing and construction (usually hand-stitched, can take 2000+ hours) to produce the highest quality product. In France, only firms that meet requirements of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture are qualified to associate the term with their garments.
As haute couture is very extravagant, usually impractical, and rarely worn in everyday life (excluding Anna Della Russo), has haute couture lost its relevance?
Fast-forwarding to today, my international marketing professor described the common tendency for the French to make situations more complicated than necessary. She explained that “being simple is very un-French” as for centuries the French have prided themselves on dominating complex-thinking, most notably with their impact on philosophy. Therefore, taking the “simple approach” in fact illustrates the lack of thought taken into consideration. Bringing this back to fashion, the exquisite and overwhelming detail that defines haute couture represents this complex thinking, that in our ever-changing world has become so easily forgotten.
As you can see in the pictures, haute couture is quite relevant as supported by the mobs of people and paps (aka: paparazzi) who attended Jean Paul Gaultier’s haute couture spring 2013 show. After my memorable experience stalking the Chanel show, I knew that I had to stalk the Jean Paul Gaultier show. Known as “l’enfant terrible” Gaultier has been pushing the envelope and testing the boundaries of sexuality with his gender-bending garments, therein challenging past standards of fashion.
After scrounging through the 227 pictures I took at 325 rue Saint Martin, below are my top 40 favourite street-style shots at the show!
Anggun: musician
Miroslava Duma: ex-editor of Harper’s Bazaar Russia, now founder of Buro 24/7
Carine Roitfeld: ex-editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, currently the editor-in-chief of CR Fashion Book
Sophie & Nick Simmons, kids of Gene Simmons from KISS
Spotted: Jeanne Beker!
Model shot
Yasmin Warsame (top model) leaving the show
Haute couture is relevant, not primarily for its need to satisfy its niche consumer base, but most importantly to inspire the evolution of fashion as an artistic medium. We need to dream and allow our imagination to widen to promote change; haute couture allows this to happen.
Hope you are all having a wonderful week and you will be hearing from me soon!
A bientôt!
Bisous,
La fausse parisienne
La fausse parisienne 