Your typical Saturday let’s-go-for-a-coffee attire. In your dreams. Unless you’re Lena Perminova or Giovana Battaglia. Then you can go for a coffee on a chill Saturday morning wearing haute couture.
You know when you’re dreaming and you are all dressed up, but then again you are just going to your local coffee shop and then you wonder how come were you wearing that? You must have gone to a ball (a party would always also do) the night before and these were the after hours already. Yes, yes, that’s it.
This is an amusing (do you sense the difference between amusing and funny?) introduction to a very serious content. The haute couture fashion content. Uu. It’s pronounced [ot kuˈtyʁ] in French and it actually means high not hot and it only takes place in Paris. Où d’autre? The “haute” and the “couture” (“dressmaking” translated from French, “fashion” translated into any language).
Haute couture is all about handmade, extreme attention to detail, expensive fabrics and often custom made for a client. It takes infinite hours of work and potentially (hopefully) lasts a lifetime, the antithesis of fast fashion’s notorious processes and disposability. If chosen well, they will look just as beautiful and “in-fashion” ten years from now.
You just have to choose from this week’s fashion shows, this week’s haute couture fashion shows in Paris. This is what I chose. À plus!
Salut!
Armani Privé by Giorgio Armani. The way it has always been done, it is supposed to be done. The couture is splendid and is there just to compliment the wearer. Never vice versa.
Giambattista Valli by Giambattista Valli. The collection was inspired by the jardins du Paris. And I could tell you just anything now, but when you’ll see this dress you won’t listen. This dress:
Jean Paul Gaultier by Jean Paul Gaultier. From all the couture shows, this particular show embodies not only the dresses, but the girls. Man, their attitude! Fun! And pleasure! Gaultier’s couture (and show) was inspired by Paris. Yet again. By the nightclub LePalace, back in the days, where Grace Jones wrapped herself in a scarf handed by Yves Saint Laurent after once being stripped naked by fans just before performing on stage. Uh-la-la, intense…
Maison Margiela by John Galliano. The perfect form of art when too much is perfect and all you ca do is just surrender, lay back and enjoy the show. Or get in it.
Ulyanna Sergeenko by Ulyanna Sergeenko. It is reportedly said that each of these dresses took about five months to be made. To me,it could have been five hours. I would have loved them the same. The 80’s silhouettes are making a huge comeback. Bonjour!
Valentino by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli. You would smell a Valentino dress from afar and uh, it smells… Noble.
Viktor & Rolf by Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren. I bet Lady Gaga has them on speed dial.
Elie Saab by Elie Saab. “India is her backdrop and her inspiration for a new blend of formalism and ease, opulence and elementary lines.”, Saab. “Her” being an Englishwoman travelling to India. I would travel like this.
Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld. Chanel is well… Chanel.
Aouadi by Yacine Aouadi. Yacine Aouadi said his dream would be to design for Chanel. Now that’s a big dream. He dreams big, but then again everyone is talking about dreaming big, so you never know. What I know is that the complexity of his looks is actually really light. Light as in not heavy. You know? Moreover, the attention this man is giving to the back of the outfit also is refreshing. So fresh, yet so couture. “Rrr”… In French.
Photos via Vogue Runway.
I am putting my haute couture (to be read “jeans”) on and going to grab a coffee.
Coming?