Have you been to a haute couture?

basically haute couture is "high sewing". in modern fashion terms it means exclusive often one off creations using usually innovative designs as opposed to classic tailoring then adapted or made to measure for maybe just one or two clients. Sometimes its just conceptual and maybe only a few pieces are then made for private clients from a show. Couture is usually used to refer to pret a porter from couture houses though technically that is a mistake. The difference is that a haute couture dress would maybe cost $10 to $200 000 whereas pret a porter pic from the same house would be maybe $1000. Really there are only maybe ten Haute Couture Houses most based in France(Chanel Dior etc)who truly have traditional "high sewing" dressmaking teams as opposed to fashion design houses. As the latter are often said to produce couture that has now effectively become the difference. Its a good comparson to think of it like the art world. A haute couture dress is like an original painting. A pret a porter dress from a couture house, or fashion designer is like a limited edition high quality print All other fashion is like cheap tacky mass produced posters and usually pirated. what is sad now is that in real terms both couture creations and pret a porter fom couture houses are probably more affordable now than at any other time in history but society rejects them as frivolus. Years ago even poorish people aspired to couture either saving for years to buy say a Dior dress, or making something themselves or by a dressmaker copying it from a pattern issued in a fashion magazine. the downside of that is that we then throw hundreds of creative and brilliant artists and dressmakers and craftspeople down the drain, while encouraging a culture of exploitative third world producion of eco damaging mass produced global corporate poor quality clothes. Personally I blame a bad lowest common denominator education system that has produced a wealthy class with no respect for art or craftsmanship produced by ordinary people with extraordinary creativity and skill. When I see wealthy people in mass produced clothing it makes me angry as they have abdicated their responsibility to craftsmanship among artisan classes. Thank goodness for countries like Russia and Italy who help to keep the Couture Houses afloat and enable skilled and traditional workers to show how they can create the beautiful clothing designed by geniuses like Galliano and Lagerfeld. this is across the board in ocity and its just as annoying for example to see furniture makers architects and artists struggle when in the past their work would have had patrons. There are obscenely wealthy people now who have IKEA furniture, posters on the wall and marks and spencers clothes on and that is a symptom of civilsiation in decay. So if you can, please support haute couture and pret a porter from couture houses and if you can't its even nice to buy a piece from a few years back from ebay etc. as they will last a lot longer in the long run and as they are less common and "faddish" they are likely to stay in style for decades. When you buy couture, even pret a porter, it is like buying Art.