| Fashion is an art reflecting life. Now and again we hear the names of Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean Paul Gautier, Versace etc. There designers have a great impact on our hair styles, the way we wear things, the way we put on make-up and even behave in this or that situation. Every season fashion gurus determine our choices of clothing.
There are several very crucial events in the fashion calendar which are called fashion weeks. Fashion weeks are organized every season for designers to exhibit their latest collections in runway shows and for customers to see the latest fashions. The most crucial thing is that they display the industry what is in fashion and what is out of fashion for the season. The most prominent fashion weeks are held in the fashion capitals, including Milan, London, New York and Paris where luxury clothes (also called haute couture) are demonstrated.
Haute Couture is a French phrase for expensive and fashionable clothes. Couture stands for dressmaking, sewing, or needlework, whereas haute stands for refined. Haute couture garments are made for a particular client from high-quality, expensive fabrics and sewed by hand often using time-consuming techniques. So, couture clothes are luxurious and chic.
Dependent on the haute couturier and the garment, the price of a couture item ranges from $10, 000 for a blouse to $40, 000 and normally beyond that figure. The cost includes payments for the service, work, originality of an exclusive design and superb materials of the highest quality.
Moreover, every client will receive a garment to fit them well. It takes about 100-150 hours to produce a handmade haute couture suit and up to 1000 hours for an evening dress embellished with thousands of beads sewn by hand. A haute couture house like Chanel, for example, will have approximately 150 regular clients purchasing couture garments, and a couture house like Dior will make approximately twenty couture wedding dresses every year.
Along with clothes, well-known couture houses make exclusive luxurious accessories, including hats, buttons, belts, jewelry, shoes, handbags. Those who can afford couture items, pay for exclusivity and the privacy guaranteed by the system. |
