So what IS haute couture? Dawn O'Porter discusses the question that many people are too embarrassed to ask

So what is Haute Couture? Is all 'Couture' Haute Couture? And ready to wear? Isn't everything ready to flippin' wear?
Finishing touches: a model waits backstage before the Zuhair Murad Houte Couture show
Picture: Gareth Cattermole/Getty
Dawn Oporter4 March 2015

You will no doubt have heard of haute couture, but do you know exactly what it is?

If I am honest, I didn't for years, even though I pretended that I did. 'Yar, totes, haute couture, I have loads of it.'

Truth being, there is a good chance I will never have any. It costs more than a small island to buy, and is also incredibly rare. It's in the same category as collectable art, as that is exactly what it is: art.

The literal definition is high (haute) sewing (couture). It's the creating and selling of top-notch custom-made women's clothing. It's hand-stitched, no machine, and it shows off the highest skills of the artist who is, in this case, the designer.

It really is the very top of the fashion world; nothing comes above haute couture. But not any old designer can create something magical and call it haute couture; the term is strictly protected for a very special few.

The design house must be a member of the Syndical Chamber of Haute Couture in Paris, and they must employ a minimum of fifteen people and present two collections a year, in Paris.

A workshop specializing in embroidery for Haute Couture work on a wedding dress for ChanelPicture: Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty

Each collection must contain at least thirty-five separates for day and evening wear.

Pioneers of haute couture include the likes of Chanel, Lanvin, Pierre Cardin, Christian Dior and Balenciaga. A dress can cost anything up to £200,000 and can take between 100 to 400 hours to build. This is where designers experiment with new techniques to create truly one-in-a-million designs.

To give you an idea of how exclusive this is: there are currently only around 200 regular haute couture customers in the world.

However, despite the small market top designers continue to produce it for prestige and artistic purposes. It's fashion at the highest end, and a mere fantasy for the majority of us.

So what is simply 'couture'?

You often hear the word 'couture', but without the 'haute'.

Couture is also a term used for top-of-the-range, to-order clothing - but not to the level of intricacy and expense as haute couture. And without the 'haute', the word 'couture' itself isn't protected.

Think of 'Ready-to-wear' as the English name for 'pret-a-porter', which is the same as 'off-the-peg'. It refers to clothes that are created by designers, produced en masse, and are literally 'ready to wear' by the consumer, as they are made to standard sizing requirements and will need little or no alteration.

Basically, it's anything that isn't couture, and ranges from the likes of Marc Jacobs and Victoria Beckham, to what you buy on the high street.

It was Yves Saint Laurent who realised the high-end design houses could make a lot more money if they sold more accessible clothing than the usual couture, when he opened his pret-a-porter store, Rive Gauche, in 1966. This inspired many others to do the same. High-end fashion now had a little sister, and ready-to-wear would soon give birth to the high street as we know it.

So, there you have it. Now you know!

Extract from This Old Thing, by Dawn O’Porter. Available from amazon.co.uk

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