What Does ‘Couture’ Actually Mean? (Published 2017) (2024)

The headquarters of the Fédération Française de la Couture, the body which safeguards the made-to-measure breed of French fashion known as haute couture, is located on the rue Faubourg St.-Honoré, just across the street from the building that used to house the couture workrooms and salons of Christian Lacroix. Ironic, given that Lacroix was a couture darling, until the recession forced him to close shop in 2009 after 22 years.

Despite his acclaimed artistry, couture alone couldn’t keep Lacroix afloat. It’s something the Fédération realizes all too well. Perhaps surprisingly to us, couture makes virtually no profit — and often posts a loss. That is because haute couture, by its very nature, is an archaic throwback. It is only produced in Paris, by a handful of designers (14 officially) and presented twice a year, in January and July. Haute couture pieces are constructed almost entirely by hand, and prices regularly range in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single piece. Houses shore their businesses up with mass-manufactured lines, or lucrative licensed perfumes and cosmetics. Haute couture’s relation to the larger fashion conversation is hazy at best: It does not determine influential new lines or silhouettes, the way ready-to-wear does. It also doesn’t dress many women. After all, those inherent yet prohibitive prices restrict the couture client base to around 1,000 people worldwide. Or as Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of fashion at Chanel, calls them: “the happy few.”

Molly SJ Lowe

Haute couture is a legally protected term — and fashion houses are only granted the designation by the French Ministry of Industry. Schiaparelli, for instance, labeled itself as “demi-couture” until this season; it was only permitted to use the haute couture appellation earlier this month. To get the label, you have to play by the rules — and there are many, which determine if a house can be haute or not. A label needs to maintain a Parisian workroom with a minimum of 20 employees, and it must produce at least 25 outfits per season. Those rules have been rewritten a number of times: Haute couture was first formalized after World War II in 1945, when rules were first implemented to prevent misuse of the name. Originally, the number of required outfits per collection was 50; in 1992, it was cut in half. Then, in 2001, the goal posts shifted again, to introduce a qualitative assessment from the Fédération, in case any of the requirements were not satisfied. “You have to compare it to the Maastricht Treaty,” says Pascal Morand, the executive president of the Fédération, with a smile. “Do you treat that in a very strict way, or do you give some flexibility? And to what point?”

There are a few different designers pushing the limits in couture today. The Dutch designer Iris Van Herpen, who began showing on the haute couture calendar in January 2011, creates extraordinary dresses devised from 3D printing which resemble the creations of H.R. Giger for the “Aliens” films. Her latest collection consisted of only 16 looks — breaking a rule of couture. Furthermore, her use of technology seems antithetical to haute couture’s cherishing of the handmade. Yet Van Herpen’s clothes are true one-offs, in the couture tradition, so the Fédération made an exception for her. Come 2015, even Chanel — couture’s longest surviving house — joined in, producing 3D printed versions of its classic suits.

The latest shifts from the industry comes from the bellwether fashion label Vetements, which has shown as part of haute couture for the last two seasons — and the official invitation of the Fédération, who bent their own rules to allow Vetements onto the schedule. Certainly, the brand’s inclusion on the schedule pushes the limits of what haute couture can — or should — mean. Its streetwear-focused designs certainly don’t look like haute couture — which, generally, favors ball gowns over day wear. That makes sense when it comes to satisfying the clientele: If you’re going to spend upward of $100,000 on a dress, it’ll probably be for your wedding (Melania Trump did, in 2005, when she married Donald Trump in Christian Dior couture). Besides, Vetements clothes are mass-manufactured.

But Morand speaks of rules that are less concrete, and more ideological. “Couture supposes a high level of creativity and a high level of savoir faire delivered in the atelier. And also the absolute level of individualization,” he says. Suddenly, it’s clear how Vetements fit the flexible couture criteria in the 21st century. Last season, the brand focused on working with individual garment manufacturers — Champion for sweatshirts, Levi’s for denim or Hanes for T-shirts — comparing them to the specialist ateliers whose expertise has supplied couture houses with embroideries, pleating and handmade buttons for centuries. “For them, it was a new way of seeing what couture could mean today,” Demna Gvasalia, Vetements’ creative director, says of the Fédération. “Craftsmanship. Whether it’s a T-shirt or an evening dress.”

Molly SJ Lowe