Talk:Haute couture

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Peer review This article was externally reviewed on October 24, 2005 by The Guardian. It was rated 0/10.

Contents

[edit] Introduction?

Jocasta removed the introduction and moved the French legal discussion to the top. I don't think that's helpful. It needs a short introduction saying WHAT it means before diving into legal issues.

[edit] List of couture houses not reliable

Folks, I'm not sure that this article is ready for prime time. At least not without some help.

I removed the categories for US and UK haute couture because, despite being a reader of Vogue for many years, I can't figure out which fashion companies do real couture (custom dressmaking) and which are simply ready-to-wear, albeit high-end ready-to-wear. Vogue completely BLURS the distinction.

I *think* that the French, Italian, and Japanese designers featured do couture, but I'm not sure. Since the same house will do couture and ready-to-wear, the line blurs again.

If there's someone here who works in the fashion industry, or knows someone who works in the fashion industry, please put in your two cents!

Zora 09:25, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Not ready for prime time ? Exactly. That's why : This is a candidate for collaboration of the week. Please visit that page to support or comment on the nomination. ... the aim being "to have a featured-standard article by the end of the week, from widespread cooperative editing." (copied from the AOTW page). -- PFHLai 19:39, 2004 Jul 16 (UTC)
Quite a bit overdue, but if we look at what the companies declare themselves to be, the current list is pretty up to speed. I myself added Hugo Boss to it, due to them calling their clothing haute couture somewhere in their gargantuan mess of a website... --TVPR 17:50, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed sentence re "only 500 rich women"

It's been a long time since I looked at this article. Someone had added a sentence stating that there are only 500 rich women in the world. What??? That's simply unverifiable, and probably false. I do remember having seen estimates of the number of women who consistently patronize haute couture, estimates that seemed surprisingly low, but I wouldn't want to put simple speculation into a Wikipedia article. If anyone has any hard info on the size of the clientele for haute couture, let's discuss it here and then put it into the article. Zora 08:52, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I found some info on http://www.fashion-era.com/haute_couture.htm... "only about 3000 women or so worldwide can actually afford to buy clothes at the highest level, and fewer than 1000 buy regularly."

[edit] pronunciation

Please use standard phonetic notation... (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa). That description of how it's pronounced isn't useful to anyone. Would someone who is very sure of the pronuncation do this? mahern

[edit] The Guardian

Alexandra Shulman in The Guardian gives this article a damning review - "every value judgment it makes is wrong" - and giving it an overall mark of zero. 86.132.137.141 02:49, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Alexandra Shulman on the Haute couture entry

Broadly speaking, it's inaccurate and unclear. It talks about haute couture and then lists a large number of ready-to-wear designers. As a very, very broad-sweep description there are a few correct facts included, but every value judgment it makes is wrong.

Overall mark: 0/10

· Alexandra Shulman is editor of Vogue

Value judgements? That's not enough to go on in revising the article. I'm not sure what she would consider a value judgement and what not. As for mixing haute couture and ready-to-wear -- I agree that this is a problem. We have anons adding designers and not making the distinction. Anyone featured in the fashion columns seems to be considered haute couture by most folks. The fashionistas themselves don't seem to make it easy to sort out who does custom work and who's just pret-a-porter. Understandable, given that the haute couture is often a loss leader. We need some fashion industry insiders to help sort it out. I can't do it; I'm merely a hapless Vogue reader. Zora 03:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I added the expert tag until we can separate pret-a-porter from haute couture people, i am certainly no expert. - cohesion | talk 09:10, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course, value judgements can't - by definition - be 'wrong'. If insiders are too arrogant to guide this discourse, an outsider view would seem to be all the more relevant for a general readership. --80.177.9.239 13:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

One wonders why Shulman did not simply edit the wikipdia lists herself if it did not meet her standards. Perhaps for an insider, to the extent she is one, it is also not easy to do. For example, if you are on the Vogue payroll, as she is or was, you run the risk of alienating advertisers (those mainly read-to-wear who want to blur the lines by claiming to also do haute couture) by leaving them off your list. You'd normally be held to providing some examples in a legitimate critique, yet she provided none.

[edit] Removed list

I think this needs to be heavily vetted before it is republished:

[edit] Current high fashion houses

[edit] Belgian

[edit] Dutch

[edit] French

[edit] German

[edit] Italian

[edit] United States

lots of issues | leave me a message 10:45, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

This should be moved to, and dealt with, at List of haute couture houses. -- Anon. 20:11, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I hope you don't mind- i edited slightly to add wikilinks. How did you come up with this list? I can't seem to find an up-to-date source for this info. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 17:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
That's the problem. You can get a list of the French-government approved haute couture houses (not sure if the current list matches the French government list) but the rest of it is pure speculation.
At issue is whether or not a fashion firm (one, say, like Donna Karan) is JUST ready-to-wear, shoes, perfumes, etc., all created in factories with no custom sector, or whether it ALSO has a workshop that makes custom clothing for rich clients. Custom as in taking measurements, drafting a pattern, cutting, several fittings, etc. Many of the firms that one might regard as "high fashion" are in fact completely ready-to-wear. Those are the ones that various editors and anons keep adding to the list, because those are the ones in the fashion press. The fashion press actively covers up the distinction between ready to wear and custom.
There are also many custom clothiers throughout the world, but most of them are extremely small-scale and do not present fashion shows which purport to establish the mode. Therefore they are not "haute couture".
I worked hard on getting info on US haute couture and found a fashion insider on a weblog who was willing to commit to John Anthony and Chado Ralph Rucci as being REAL custom clothiers with fashion clout. The Ashby is vandalism and I'm not sure that Mainbocher is still couture, or still in business. Zora 18:20, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I was under the impression that Haute Couture does not mean just that they establish clothing, but that they are certified by that Chambre whatever. Also, can someone with fashion knowledge look into the mention of Warmenhoven and Vanderbos? The mention was added a long time ago in a suspiciously gushy edit at [1] that looks a little spammy, and was not edited out. The same IP also added this designer to the list of haute couture designers, but that info is not provided on their webpage. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

If we go with Chambre certification, that means only French firms can be haute couture. Possibly a solution might be to have a list of current and former certified French firms -- undeniably haute couture -- and then a list of designers in other countries who might meet, or might have met, the French standards if there were a certifying agency. Then perhaps a list of fashion houses, not necessarily haute couture? So a three-tier list. Zora 18:35, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Ugh, that sounds POV right off the bat there. I'm not sure if we can maintain that kind of stuff with any sort of authority. As a side note, in googling research on this, I also saw some schools refered to as "schools of haute couture". Should that definition and usage be covered in this article? --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:43, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
A school of haute couture is a jumped-up sewing school <g>. It claimes to teach couture techniques of pattern drafting, fitting, fine handwork, etc. The teacher may have no contacts in the world of haute couture, may never have worked there, and may not be able to get students jobs in that world. I believe that there's one school that DOES constitute a pipeline to the fashion world, the Fashion Institute of Technology, in New York, I think. Otherwise the traditional path is apprenticeship.
How about a two-tier list then? Certified, and non-certified but generally regarded as haute couture? Zora 00:04, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Once again, "generally regarded" is a POV term that we are generally unequipped to verify. Unless a major fashion news source (i.e. Vogue) categorizes these non-certified designers as "Haute Couture", we should not include them. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 19:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, if no one can certify the Warmenhoven cite I'm removing it from this article and the Fashion design article. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What happened?

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.

OK, so what is the current official list of Haute couture houses accredited my France's Ministry of Industry? What are the conditions which should be met for a house to be officially accredited? Which houses have been acreddited in the past? (dates of accreditation & dates of losing accreditation). Indeed there should definitely be a separate List of haute couture houses. A hapless vogue reader with a bit of time & google can easily make significant progress on answering Shulman's sweeping dismissal. Experts are over-rated, I'm swapping the tag as beyond removing the list of fashion houses this article has not changed significantly since the article in the Guardian. MGSpiller 00:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Stuff Dreams are Made Of section shows clear bias

"These hand stitches are so graceful to look at, it's like watching a ballet dancer's leaps frozen in time."

"It's the best bargain in fashion."

"until clear into the nineties, haute couture was the stuff women's dreams were made of."

Clearly all subjective bias. This section and possibly the whole article need to be re-written from a neutral point of view.

It was unnecessary, orginal research, and informally written. I've deleted it. Cold Water 22:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


Comment Actually I think it was quite well written. But I understand that it needs quite a bit of work in order to conform to your style. I wrote it several months ago and it's one of the few things I've written that was never published and I thought it would help your article. As your article now stands it is (except for deleting the ready-to-wear designers mistakenly included as couturiers) virtually identical to the October 15 version, about which the editor of Vogue wrote "As a very, very broad-sweep description there are a few correct facts included, but every value judgment it makes is wrong." As for bias, I've never worked in the industry. Yes my mother bought a very few pieces in Paris, which she treasured, and I've bought quite a lot at vintage stores. So I do love couture. But then again the author of "Sistine Chapel" article clearly loves Michelangelo's paintings. I've done quite a bit of reading about Haute Couture over the years but I dont have the refs handy. Can I reproduce what I wrote here so people can see it and judge? You'll see it has a lot of facts that give depth to the rest of the article.

My contribution As stated above, couture is expensive, custom-made clothing produced primarily in Paris. But this description does little to convey the cachet that haute couture once had -- and still has -- among the rarefied elite of the fashion world. For half a century, from the end of World War II when Christian Dior created the "new look" and suddenly every woman's wardrobe was outdated, until clear into the nineties, haute couture was the stuff women's dreams were made of.

Twice a year, in January and July, the top designers in France present a new line of haute couture fashion. These designs are totally different from their other, ready to wear lines. Until recently, it was the haute couture shows which were the driving engine of fashion creativity. The designer put by far the greatest part of his effort into these. The shows theselves were often quite memorable. Back in the sixties, fashion iconoclast Courreges (see history section above)concealed a huge nude black man in a box beneath the most exclusive front-row seats, ready to burst forth and dance, or perhaps gibber, at a prearranged signal.

Couture fashions epitomized elegance and glamour. But, as stated above, they always lost money... designers did it to boost their reputation, so their moneymaking perfumes would sell better. It was an artist's dream: creativity was unfettered, unrestrained by any financial considerations, and many creations were so over the top and frou frou that no one bought them. (Nor were people intended to; they were intended as extravagant works of art, and helped garner publicity.) Even the best sellers sold only ten or fifteen copies. Only 2,000 women have ever bought a couture dress. It's just too expensive.

How expensive? The fashion houses are coy about this. And they often lend movie stars gowns to wear on Oscar night. But I phoned the Valentino boutique several years ago and they said a suit costs at least $15,000. The blouse costs an extra $7,000. An evening gown costs more, upwards of $20,000, and elaborate numbers can fetch well over $100 thousand.

It's the best bargain in fashion. An Armani ready to wear suit has about 3 hours of work put in. Couture gowns have upwards of 200, and some can take 1000 hours of sewing. Everything is done by hand. The lining is sewn by hand. Every stitch is done by hand (though I've seen some of the long seams made with sewing machines). These hand stitches are so graceful to look at, it's like watching a ballet dancer's leaps frozen in time.

Each suit or gown is custom made and requires at least three fittings. The fittings are quite elegant. At Valentino, expensive perfume is sprayed into the air a few minutes before the client arrives, so she doesnt have to breathe the same air as the masses. The client may also ask for modifications in the design to be sure hers is totally unique. But it's a time consuming business... fly to Paris, attend the shows, then spend weeks in Paris going to fittings. But I'm sure it has its rewards. It was rumored that JFK's widow married Onassis so she could afford Valentino Couture.

Each couture house has two ateliers (couture workshops) The Atelier Tailleur produces the suits, which are rigorously tailored. The Atelier Flou sews the gowns. The Atelier Flou starts with a piece of fabric and a dream. Their creations appear to be woven out of light and air

Yes, it was well-written, but it's still personal opinion and not appropriate for an encyclopedia. We aren't a vanity publishing concern. Zora 19:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History section, bibliography

Someone copied the article re Charles Worth into the haute couture article, where it stuck out like a sore thumb. I trimmed it down considerably.

There must be some academic books and articles on haute couture and we really should cite them. The article could use more research and a real bibliography. Zora 08:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPV?

"English intelligencia used their eternal francophobia and jealousy in painting new rules to limit it, trying to dash down the french art greatness who was ruling the world."

Doesn't this seem just a tad too anti-English and a tad too pro-French to anyone else? Not to mention it should be 'that' not 'who'...

I have reverted all the edits by "Jim Smhti" or whatever the username was. They were grotesquely nationalist, not to mention badly spelled and phrased. Zora 03:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demi-couture?

Demi-couture seems to be an emerging middle-ground between haute couture and prêt-à-porter, but I found nothing in wikipedia about it. I don't know nearly enough to start the article though. Smileyy 01:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Education

Someone (when?) had added a list of fashion design schools in a section on education. I erased the whole section. I'm sure that there must be hundreds, if not thousands of schools and programs training people for the fashion industry. WP can't put itself in the position of deciding which of them are worth mention and which aren't. Zora 02:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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