What is Haute Couture? Inside Fashion’s Most Exclusive Club
An emblem of French elegance and sophistication, and fashion at its most refined, there are few things grander than the elaborate craft of haute couture
It was back in 1858 when British designer Charles Frederick Worth established the first couture house at number 7, rue de la Paix in Paris, championing exclusive luxury fashion for the upper-class woman. Widely regarded as the father of haute couture and coining the term “fashion designer” – an artist in lieu of the basic dressmaker – he set the stage for what was to become the highest echelon of fashion, where budget is no limit to ambition. Fast-forward more than a decade and a half later and it is still an arm seen as the preserve of the crème de la crème.
What is Haute Couture?
Translating to high dressmaking in English, haute couture is a legally-protected term set in 1945, with the industry governed by Paris’s Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM). Think of it like champagne, which can only be called so if it is crafted from specific grapes grown in a particular region. Founded in 1868, the federation was first established to help preserve the strict standards of French fashion culture by presiding over Paris women’s and men’s fashion weeks, all while nurturing designers who exhibit a quality of craftsmanship that meets the level required to show on the official haute couture schedule.
Designers wishing to produce haute couture collections must first be granted the designation by France’s Ministry of Industry.
As to be expected, this is no easy feat. Not only must the house in question create made-to-order pieces for private clients and maintain an atelier in Paris staffed by at least 15 full-time artisans and 20 full-time technical experts, it must also commit to presenting a collection of at least 50 original designs throughout the year. As of today, members include the likes of Chanel, Christian Dior, Givenchy and Schiaparelli, as well as renowned Middle Eastern names like Zuhair Murad and Elie Saab.
As opposed to ready-to-wear collections, which are produced in larger quantities, each haute couture piece is constructed almost entirely by hand by one of just 2,200 qualified seamstresses worldwide.
A simple couture dress takes an average of 150 hours to create, and the most elaborate garments can take many month). As such, clients can expect to pay in the hundreds of thousands of dirhams for a single piece, which won’t come with a set price tag – the final bill depends on the cost of each material and the number of labour hours involved.
It’s these prohibitive price tags that have also helped make haute couture the most exclusive segment of the industry, with a client base of around just 4,000 people worldwide including Queen Rania of Jordan and Sheikha Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned of Qatar who, in 2023, donned an all-white haute couture dress from Maison Valentino’s S/S 2023 collection whilst meeting with the First Lady of Turkey in New York to discuss sustainable development. Bruno Pavlovsky, the president of fashion at Chanel, famously calls them “the happy few.”
The first official Paris Fashion Week happened in 1973 with the formation of the Fédération Française de la Couture.
It organised haute couture, ready-to-wear and men’s fashion into one umbrella. Today the illustrious Paris Couture Week is held in January (S/S) and July (A/W), welcoming officially recognised haute couture houses (for spring/summer 2024 there were only 10), as well as guest members who, should they show collections for four consecutive years, are then eligible to apply to become an official member.
A select number of corresponding members who are approved to use the label couture but not haute couture – their ateliers are not in Paris, but they do produce work that meets the same strict qualifications as official members – are also on show. Due to the amount of time that goes into creating each look, shows are typically much shorter than the average, and traditionally finish with an elaborate bridal look, a practice that dates back to the late 1940s.
Given that it’s a craft deeply rooted within traditions and the human touch, in recent years a growing number of experts have been questioning the relevance of haute couture in an increasingly fast-paced world. The industry is indeed evolving – in 2022, for example, Balenciaga opened a revolutionary couture shop, with certain looks from its most recent show immediately on sale – while a younger generation of creatives are rising the ranks, bringing fresh ideas to the table and incorporating more sustainable, environmentally-friendly aspects to their design. Thankfully, with this fresh blood leading the change, we can’t see it fading to black anytime soon.
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Lead image credits: Giambattista Valli Haute Couture S/S 2024 and Elie Saab Haute Couture S/S 2024. Photographer: Jason Lloyd-Evans
