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Is this the golden age of couture?
While luxury brands have been hurt by fluctuating demand over the past six months, this season’s couture week had a vitality and scale that defied the macroeconomic environment.
“Couture is a small market, but it’s growing because today the most high-end products are curiously the most in-demand worldwide,” LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault said on Thursday night at the conglomerate earnings conference. “At Dior Couture, we can’t meet the demand from all our customers because it takes a lot of work to train seamstresses and to make haute couture dresses. Our workshop capacity is limited, so we are forced to restrict orders,” he said
“The collections are big. There are more and more exceptional and unique pieces,” says Le Figaro editor-in-chief of fashion Hélène Guillaume. A case in point: Giorgio Armani’s 92-look Privé collection.
This season, 30 houses were listed on the official calendar, including the usual big names like Dior, Chanel, Valentino and Schiaparelli, as well as the return of Maison Margiela and Robert Wun, and the addition of new guest member Peet Dullaert. Celebrities flocked to the shows, which ran from Monday to Thursday, including Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Natalie Portman, Glenn Close, Juliette Binoche, Reese Witherspoon and Naomi Campbell.
A handful of houses, led by Chanel and Dior, have turned couture into a thriving business in itself. “This portion of the market is in good shape, with top spenders continuing to splurge. In fact, many brands have announced renewed plans for couture,” says Bernstein analyst Luca Solca. He estimates that couture sales are up 10 per cent this year.
“Couture took off with John Galliano, under Gianfranco Ferré it was beautiful but small, today it’s a real business unit,” says Sidney Toledano, president of Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, who was recently appointed advisor to LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault.
The value of couture rests partly within its halo effect: it has a positive impact on brand image because it brings craftsmanship and skill to the forefront. It also serves as a platform to build buzz around films in the lead-up to the Oscars (many creations that we saw this week are bound to land on the red carpet).
This season was the perfect setting to promote The New Look, an upcoming Apple TV series about the life of Christian Dior and his contemporaries (Gabrielle Chanel is played by Binoche, while Close stars as fashion editor Carmel Snow). “We’re very excited. The casting is magnificent,” said Maria Grazia Chiuri, artistic director of women’s collections at Dior.
Critics noted a lack of diversity on the couture catwalks. There was also perhaps a subtle concession to the current economic climate in some of the collections in the apparent simplicity of the designs. Vogue Runway fashion critic Tiziana Cardini notes that lightness was a “thread this season at Chanel, at Jean Paul Gaultier by Simone Rocha, Armani, Fendi. Even Valentino felt breezy; about movement”.
Cardini highlights the Chanel collection, which had a “light touch and delicacy”. “The collection was whimsical but set against the narrative of Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free,” she said. The American rapper and the filmmaker created a short film coinciding with the collection. “Virginie Viard got out of her comfort zone, collaborating with cutting-edge creatives. It was a brave move.”
At the Valentino show, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli translated couture templates into modern propositions, not just addressing occasion dressing, says Cardini. She points to a poofy ball gown in turquoise taffeta that was paired with a boxy hoodie in khaki-green gabardine, trimmed with stand-up feathers.
Couture goes beyond occasion dressing, Grazia Chiuri said during a preview of the Dior collection. “There are clients who have a specific request for a specific occasion — wedding dress, important ceremony — but very often [it’s] also [for their] wardrobe. It’s timeless.” It is also a laboratory for experimentation, she adds. “You learn a lot, and you can bring some ideas to the prêt-à-porter.”
Jordan Roth, a theatre producer and self-proclaimed couture devotee, praised Jean Paul Gaultier through guest designer Rocha. “I loved what she did, how strongly she retained her own aesthetics while exploring Jean Paul Gaultier’s legacy, to take the cone bra and to turn it into a devil horn, to create the iconic striped shirt of Gaultier out of ribbons, to do a sort of trompe l’oeil of gloves by showing up the jewels of the gloves, with no glove.”
Iris Van Herpen may have been missing from the couture schedule this season, but the Dutch designer’s presence was still felt in Paris thanks to her exhibition at Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
Alaïa once again chose to show its ready-to-wear show during couture week to rave reviews. “The female body and a sophisticated mentality were being connected in a way that felt like a class apart. It was a departure from anything that fashion has been showing in the past season,” wrote Vogue Runway’s Sarah Mower.
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