Is There Hope For Haute Couture?
With all the talk this week about Viktor and Rolf’s return to Haute Couture after a 13 year absence and Christian Lacroix collaborating with the House of Schiaparelli for a 15 piece Couture collection honoring and reinterpreting the most famous creations of the late, legendary Elsa Schiaparelli, Haute Couture is very much back in Vogue (literally, the powers that be at Conde Nast are all over these ones!) and on the tip of every fashionistas tongue as we contemplate what breathtaking feats of fashion fantasy these designers will bring to the stage at the couture shows in Paris this July.
All this hype and pomp does beg the question, and not for the first time, of the relevance of couture in todays world. Is it just a flamboyant indulgence staged to create a circus around couture houses to promote their accessory and perfume lines, by selling this unattainable notion of a dreamworld reality through a celebratory showing of self importance, or does haute couture still wield more substance. I hope so.
There has been a notable decline in couture over the last 30 if not 40 years, it reached its pinnacle in the 50’s with extravagant ballgowns and frippery of the like but diminished with the life style that it catered to. Is it then just simply that couture ceases to be of relevance in todays world?
The couture shows in Paris twice a year allow us to immerse ourselves in a glamour that is so endearingly out of touch that it seems nostalgic. But is it just that, is it just nostalgia that keeps haute couture alive in the fast moving pace of fashion today? Even just through the glossy pages of a magazine or the browser of your desktop, are these indulgent creations still as aspiring to us as they were to say our grandmother in the 50’s?
Couture, be it due to its nostalgic tendencies or to the sheer outrageousness and impracticality of it, stirs up the creative juices of the masses, so to speak, and i’ve often found myself mesmerized with awe at the pure beauty and perfection and the unparalleled attention to detail given to these garments on many an occasion. The haute couture shows provide a platform for couturiers that allows the designers to let their hair down and their minds roam free as they bring to life the most outrageously, overwhelmingly, beautiful, stunning and fairytale like pieces only the most creatively intelligent minds could imagine. From a designer point of view this must be very liberating, all couture houses also present pret-a-porter collections and the opulence of their haute couture pieces is in stark contrast to the simplistic and sometimes minimalist design aesthietic of their profit wielding sister. So realistically does the sheer modernity of the world we live in allow for the indulgences ultimately associated with haute couture?
Couture was never authentically a frilly, frou frou, over indulged and impractical affair, although historically it has altruistically embraced these characteristics, the term haute couture simply translates as high fashion. The allure of haute couture has always been the exclusivity of having tailor made, custom clothing finished by hand by the most prestigious craftsmen in the world using the most precious, expensive, and sometimes rare fabrics, threads, adornments and finishes available.
It is time, in my humble opinion, couture moved with the times and although it seems to be stuck in some sort of time warp, is it possible that it may be stepping out of the twilight zone and back into 2013? There has been a significant shift in the market for couture, it is growing increasingly international, its main client base is no longer in the US and Europe it has shifted to Asia, the Middle East and China and the needs of this international client base have also shifted accordingly. These uber rich couturier clientele for the most part are not sit at home wives and women who throw lavish party’s and beguiling balls, they are high powered, hard working, influential, successful women who hold hard hitting business meetings and cut off balls. So why can the essence of haute couture not cater for the changing needs of the women it dresses? Ultimately, bespoke pieces can be created in the spirit of couture to suit any walk of life and any occasion. After all its relevance at its peek in the 50’s was that it was practical to the elite few who could afford it and the life styles they lived. Refreshingly there has been a reflection of the changing criteria of coutures clientele in the aesthetic of the pieces they show, they gesture more and more toward the practical without loosing the element of fantastical and are therefore winning a younger, fresher audience.
The market for easily accessible, cheap, throw away fashion today has grasped the world in such a sense that the ordinary nine to fivers are so far removed from the idea of haute couture that short of never being able to dream of affording it they probably have no idea its still alive. Could it be that the new lease of life haute couture is experiencing could see its reinvention and reinstatement as the pinnacle of Parisienne and international craftsmanship and fashion at the forefront of even the most unfashionable minds and coveted by all?
Personally I can’t wait to marvel in the creations of the couturiers come July and float away on a cloud of nostalgia, the air of creativity and genius filling my lungs and a whisper in the breeze of modernity and most of all, Hope.
Above Images; Viktor and Rolf Haute Couture 1999 www.viktor-rolf.com, Charles Frederick Worth Couture from the collection at the Met Museum www.metmuseum.org, Christian Dior Haute Couture c. 1950 www.portobellojewelery.com, Christian Dior Haute Couture 2013 www.ibtimes.co.uk
