| FASHION is an art that reflects life. Now and again we hear the names of Christian Lacroix, Yves Saint Laurent, Lanvin, Giorgio Armani etc. There designers have a great impact upon our hair styles, how we dress up, the way we put on make-up and even our habits. Fashion designers determine our choice of clothing every season.
There are several very significant events in the fashion calendar known as fashion weeks. Fashion weeks are held each season for fashion houses to show their latest collections in runway shows and for fashion conscious people to take a look at the latest fashions. The most crucial thing is that they exhibit the industry what is in and what is out for the season. The largest fashion weeks are arranged in the fashion capitals, including Milan, London, New York and Paris where luxury clothes (differently called haute couture) are shown.
Haute Couture is a French term for expensive and fashionable clothes. Couture stands for dressmaking, sewing, or needlework, whereas haute means elegant. Haute couture garments are made for a particular customer from high-quality, expensive fabrics and sewed by hand usually using time-consuming techniques. Therefore, couture garments are luxurious and chic.
Dependent on the haute couturier and the garment, the price of a couture item varies from $10, 000 for a blouse to $40, 000 and commonly beyond that amount. The cost is so high due to service, work, originality of an exclusive design and first-class fabrics of the finest quality.
In addition, every customer will receive a garment to fit them well. It takes about 100-150 hours to create a handmade couture suit and up to 1000 hours for an embellished evening dress with thousands of beads sewed by hand. A fashion house like Chanel, for instance, will have about 150 regular customers buying couture clothes, and a couture house like Dior will make approximately twenty luxury wedding dresses yearly.
Along with clothes, famous fashion houses make chic luxurious accessories, including hats, buttons, belts, jewellery, shoes, handbags. Those who can afford couture garments, pay for exclusivity and the privacy offered by the system. |
