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here there be dragons

@songofsaraneth / songofsaraneth.tumblr.com

Jade ☀︎ i spend a lot of time outside in the dirt, and sometimes underwater. currently crying over fictional pixel elves, again (Mass Effect/Dragon Age sideblog: maythedreadwolftakeyou) my 'about' page has all the rest
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Reblogged leviathanmirror
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Someone left a comment about the difference between couture and haute couture and I lost it so hopefully this post finds the right audience.

The difference between the two is one is a regulated term. Anyone can call themselves “couture”, all that typically (not always) means is that their pieces are hand-made and one-of-a-kind, though many brands just stick it at the end of their name to sound fancy. It’s a glorified marketing buzzword.

Haute couture, on the other hand, is determined by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (formerly the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture), which is a part of the French Ministry of Industry. They have somewhere around 100 members last time I checked, and only these brands can present at Paris couture week, though they don’t have to have a live show.  These are some of the criteria for selection:

“To qualify as an official Haute Couture house, members must design made-to-order clothes for private clients, with more than one fitting, using an atelier (workshop) that employs at least fifteen fulltime staff. They must also have twenty fulltime technical workers in one of their workshops. Finally, Haute Couture houses must present a collection of no less than 50 original designs — both day and evening garments — to the public every season, in January and July.”
Source: themakeupbrush
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Bringing this back for couture week.

Additionally, I’ve seen a lot of confusion about the point of couture, which is somewhat understandable. I think sometimes the fact that certain brands couture collections are worn on red carpets leads people to think that couture just means “extravagant, expensive evening wear collection”, but as I’ve stated above, that’s not at all what it means.

Plenty of couture is never really meant to be worn outside of exhibiting it at the runway show, which is why they only make one. I’ve seen a lot of comments either not understanding why anyone would design something that’s unwearable or saying there should be a separate “fashion as art” category. That’s what couture is. 

Specifically looking at this season’s Viktor & Rolf collection as an extreme example, it’s truly a walking art exhibit. Not only is the craftsmanship needed to make the dresses stand like that absolutely insane, they’re also using it as a critique of how the internet has warped our perception of reality. If this was framed in a museum, people would be all over it. And yet, because it’s labelled as “fashion”, about 75% percent of the comments on that post are “stupid fashion people have gone too far who the hell would ever wear this what’s the point” (almost a direct quote FYI) Most people still see fashion as something that needs to be pretty, functional, and wearable, not something that could just be for the sake of artistic value. 

ETA: Most couture brands have other shows during “regular” fashion weeks which are called Ready to Wear collections (otherwise known as RTW), though they sometimes have other names like resort, cruise, pre-fall etc depending on what time of the year they are released. These are clothes that are designed to be sold and worn, even if sometimes the runway styling is a little…extreme. Fashion as art vs fashion as clothing already exists, it’s just known as couture and ready to wear respectively. 

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So real haute couture has to be from the haute region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling fashion?

#yeah this!#its art draped on a person its not necessarily for you to put on to get groceries#fashion#couture#ready to wear#q

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