Dior, Valentino, Schiaparelli: The week of haute couture is at its peak

Sidney Toledano, who was recently elected to a two-year term as head of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, hailed it as an extraordinary week marked by creativity, quality and desire. Couture is an absolute dream, so of course young people are fascinated by the images, but that’s not the point. It’s a side effect, he said. The aim of the designers was to actually work with their atelier, thelittle hands, an excellent supplier. This is what Paris means.

Couture has a small client base globally: estimates vary from a few hundred to a few thousand. However, the French fashion industry has struggled to recruit enough artisans to keep up with demand, and has launched a campaign to bring younger generations into these jobs. It’s not the couture clientele that’s lacking, it’s the artisans, says Toledano.

Jordan Roth, a theater producer and self-proclaimed couture devotee, says the increased attention to couture week is a natural evolution: Couture’s ambition is the highest expression of what these artists can create. Jean Paul Gaultier by Haider Ackermann, Viktor & Rolf, Schiaparelli, Iris van Herpen, that’s the full expression of their art. Couture is the extreme of the best: the extreme of what each artist can create and the extreme between and between them, he says. It’s not about trends or what can be sold in stores. People, more and more, are starting to appreciate this work as they value art and seek to understand it. If you stood in front of a painting, you would say I want to understand. Often we don’t stand in front of clothes and say I want to understand this. That’s what couture invites us to do, to dive deep.

The Instagrammer behind Couturfu, a meme account specializing in runway imagery, who wishes to remain anonymous, tellsVogue Business:Couture crystallized love and hatred for the fashion industry. Fashion houses have to admit that they now get the same visibility as ready-to-wear, but that doesn’t equal access to democracy at all. In a way it’s very much like art. If I can’t afford it, I want to be entertained, questioned, and surprised by it. This meme-worthy season ticks that box perfectly.

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