Discussion: Is Haute Couture Modern?

[LadyJunon]

Thoughts?

OP-ED: IS HAUTE COUTURE MODERN?

BY EUGENE RABKIN
JUL 5, 2023

The haute couture week that ends tomorrow in Paris is taking place amidst the riots caused by police killing an Arab youth. In such a setting, showing ultra-expensive clothes to a bunch of ultra-rich women who descend on Paris twice a year for the haute couture week to throw money around felt a bit like the last ancien regime masked ball before the guillotines are rolled out. Only Celine displayed some sensitivity towards Paris, its people, and its own staff and canceled its show. For the rest, evidently, the show must go on.

Blaming fashion for being out of touch with reality is not entirely fair. On some level escapism is fashion’s raison d’etre. Nevertheless, there exists a line between the outside world and the amoral one of fashion, and crossing that line can feel irresponsible, or, at least in terms fashion can understand, distasteful. In times of recent crises, such as 9/11 or the financial meltdown of 2008, luxury fashion and its clientele seemed to understand that, pulling back its most egregious excesses in times of difficulty. Today it seems like that’s no longer the case.

Putting politics aside, watching haute couture shows in today’s cultural milieu still leaves one feeling that it is increasingly irrelevant. Aesthetically, much of it looks anachronistic, a wistful throwback to a world of class division, racial inequality, and conservative morals that hardly feels modern today. One sensed that in the pillbox hats at Alaia, or in the poofy ball gowns at Giambattista Valli.

The feeling that haute couture is out of touch with the wider culture is not new. In the past even some of its most acclaimed practitioners have said so. Yves Saint Laurent declared haute couture outmoded already in 1968, not coincidentally following the students’ riots that rocked Paris. “Recent political events, the reaction of young people to fashion and the way of life today make haute couture a relic of the past,” he pronounced. To YSL the street, and not the insulated couture salons, was modern and relevant, and haute couture was hopelessly bourgeois and insignificant. “First nights at the theater, life on a yacht – all things like that belong to a society which no longer means anything,” he said, “a society which is no longer å la mode.”

The best defense of haute couture is that it serves as the spectacle of skill and craft. And savoir faire, in our increasingly plastic world, deserves our attention more than ever. But much of it has already been translated into ready-to-wear. Thom Browne has been a champion of this movement – his pret-a-porter often looks like couture. Did he really need to go through the effort and the expense of putting on a couture show in which most of the clothes looked like his ready-to-wear? At Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri was driven by the notions of “apparent simplicity,” and she surely got that right, with half of the clothes hardly deserving the haute couture moniker. The most intricate, handworked pieces she presented, could have easily found their rightful place in one of her regular collections. The same can be said for Schiaparelli, where most of the clothes are so beautifully and intricately made that one can be forgiven for failing to see what goes under haute couture and what does not.

For most brands haute couture has not been economically viable for decades. Its best use has been as image-elevating marketing vehicles to sell bags, perfume, and sunglasses. But there are other successful ways of marketing those goods without engaging in spectacles for the elite that increasingly feel uncouth. Dispensing with the semi-annual couture collections would alleviate the enormous pressure on top fashion designers, and save money, including that of editors and photographers who won’t have to bear additional week’s worth of expenses. And I doubt many will shed a tear for the celebrities and the ultra-rich – surely there are plenty of gated, Instagram-friendly sandboxes they can still play in.

Fashion is about change. What was radical yesterday can look staid today. Coco Chanel’s tweed suits and fake pearls were once the avant-garde, but today they are the marker of sartorial conservatism. Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘60s departure from his hallowed work at Dior scandalized the fashion press, but by the ‘80s he became what he most feared, an out of touch recluse who dressed Parisian society ladies. In the ‘80s Alaia produced clothes that were radical in their sexiness and a hint of kink, before becoming a purveyor of fancy tennis-silhouette dresses to the rich-and-thin Park Avenue set. As sad as that may be, it is also the natural rhythm of fashion. And in that rhythm haute couture no longer feels modern.

AUTHOR: EUGENE RABKIN

Source: StyleZeitgeist

 

[LadyJunon]

While the concept of extremely expensive clothing that serves very few people may seem anachronistic to many, I can't help but feel that the protective, overly careful, slow paced world of Haute Couture is the antithesis to the violent break-neck pacing that has been increasingly normalised in fashion as a whole.

 

[gallianostan]

and what of the pattern cutters? the seamstresses? the embroiderers, or the milliners? the shoemakers and the tailors? the première and directrice? what of them? les petites mains are the backbone of this tradition. without them, you have an entire industry of workers, of craftsmen and artisans, out on the streets. these individuals represent entire dynasties of skills and expertise. they uphold the savour-faire that has shaped, and will continue to shape, culture as we know it. to suggest that we ought to do away with this beautiful thing for the sake of ‘optics’, to placate modern political sensibilities, is ludicrous, and to suggest that we make an entire industry of people redundant to this end is not only insensitive, it’s disgraceful. it’s true le salons de parisienne may not be as visionary as they once were, but those are the shortcomings of senior corporate figures, and the unskilled creative directors they appoint, who no longer desire to temper commerce and profit with art and innovation. haute couture is a frivolous practice, i will concede that, but where would the industry be without it? in a cultural climate that is so politically charged, we could use a little beauty to brighten our lives and fuel our imagination.


tl;dr: the writer’s an idiot.

 

[Drusilla_]

Thoughts?

Source: StyleZeitgeist

typical "I don't get fashion" take but coming from someone who's been into it for the last 20 years and even set up a whole forum devoted to men's high fashion? bizarre.

So he wants to do away with couture on what, aesthetic grounds? Because it's expensive and doesn't "look modern" and dares to exist in a world where a kid was unfairly shot dead? What's next, flush every tailoring establishment on Savile Row down the toilet too?

Of course I wouldn't expect this style of commentary to acknowledge that couture - and bespoke clothing in general - are the best way for new clothing to be sustainable (since that is the other buzzword in the industry these days) and ethically made, given that couture clothes are custom made by workers who receive a fair - and hopefully good - wage for their labour, that they're made in very small quantities and highly, highly unlikely to ever go into landfill. But no, let's just throw the baby out with the bathwater because it's expensive and it looks bad to have rich people coming to Paris now because how dare they have the money to pay for those clothes, never mind the petits mains, the pattern cutters, embroiderers, makers of feathers and flowers, milliners, all of the people who put in skilled work into making those things. Maybe everyone should just wear sackcloth and trackie bottoms and that would be more egalitarian or something.

 

[ozztara]

typical "I don't get fashion" take but coming from someone who's been into it for the last 20 years and even set up a whole forum devoted to men's high fashion? bizarre.

So he wants to do away with couture on what, aesthetic grounds? Because it's expensive and doesn't "look modern" and dares to exist in a world where a kid was unfairly shot dead? What's next, flush every tailoring establishment on Savile Row down the toilet too?

Of course I wouldn't expect this style of commentary to acknowledge that couture - and bespoke clothing in general - are the best way for new clothing to be sustainable (since that is the other buzzword in the industry these days) and ethically made, given that couture clothes are custom made by workers who receive a fair - and hopefully good - wage for their labour, that they're made in very small quantities and highly, highly unlikely to ever go into landfill. But no, let's just throw the baby out with the bathwater because it's expensive and it looks bad to have rich people coming to Paris now because how dare they have the money to pay for those clothes, never mind the petits mains, the pattern cutters, embroiderers, makers of feathers and flowers, milliners, all of the people who put in skilled work into making those things. Maybe everyone should just wear sackcloth and trackie bottoms and that would be more egalitarian or something.

On the sustainability thing, not something the article mentioned but when you talk about haute couture being more sustainable doesn’t that sort of allude to an issue? Like, I definitely agree it is, but therein lies the fact that ‘sustainability’ should only be reserved for the rich, that you pay for guilt-free couture in addition to it being well-made. RTW definitely has the capabilities to be at least more sustainable, not to the same level, but closer to something not so egregiously unsustainable.

It also just feels like when we praise haute couture for being sustainable, but then also acknowledge it’s use in promoting all the other stuff we are sort of detracting from the original praise.

I suppose, to me, at even some rtw price points that efforts for sustainability should be intrinsic. But this is a different discussion tough, just my half-baked thoughts from reading your reply.

 

[Drusilla_]

On the sustainability thing, not something the article mentioned but when you talk about haute couture being more sustainable doesn’t that sort of allude to an issue? Like, I definitely agree it is, but therein lies the fact that ‘sustainability’ should only be reserved for the rich, that you pay for guilt-free couture in addition to it being well-made. RTW definitely has the capabilities to be at least more sustainable, not to the same level, but closer to something not so egregiously unsustainable.

It also just feels like when we praise haute couture for being sustainable, but then also acknowledge it’s use in promoting all the other stuff we are sort of detracting from the original praise.

I suppose, to me, at even some rtw price points that efforts for sustainability should be intrinsic. But this is a different discussion tough, just my half-baked thoughts from reading your reply.

at no point did I say sustainability should be reserved for the rich or that it was (plenty of sustainable labels operate at lower price points), just that it's pointless to demonise the one form of fashion production (custom making) that actually comes closest to it, on the grounds that it's, what, 'not inclusive'? Like everything is framed through the lens of a right to consumption, which is in its own right a troubling view.

Now the matter of where and what these customers' money comes from may be its own can of worms, but the source of their customers' income isn't something that the makers or sellers of clothes are responsible for or should be held responsible for - that would just be pointless scapegoating.

Not to mention that several of the labels showing at HC week are not promoting offshoot products or just fronts to sell trendy bags and perfumes, they actually are ateliers producing clothes to order - or at least clothes - first and foremost.

 

[blueorchid]

it wasn’t modern when Brigitte Bardot, I think, said it was for grannies in the 1960s. Has it ever truly been modern?

 

[ozztara]

at no point did I say sustainability should be reserved for the rich or that it was (plenty of sustainable labels operate at lower price points), just that it's pointless to demonise the one form of fashion production (custom making) that actually comes closest to it, on the grounds that it's, what, 'not inclusive'? Like everything is framed through the lens of a right to consumption, which is in its own right a troubling view.

Now the matter of where and what these customers' money comes from may be its own can of worms, but the source of their customers' income isn't something that the makers or sellers of clothes are responsible for or should be held responsible for - that would just be pointless scapegoating.

Not to mention that several of the labels showing at HC week are not promoting offshoot products or just fronts to sell trendy bags and perfumes, they actually are ateliers producing clothes to order - or at least clothes - first and foremost.

I was more talking about the potential implications of what you said, which is what I got but if that’s not what you intended fair enough. I understand what you mean about not demonising it, that’s on me probably just misinterpreting your comment.

I disagree generally that sustainable brands are more affordable. More what I’m trying to say is that it just feels off at least to me personally to use couture being sustainable as a defence for it’s existence or ‘modernity’ as it becomes an increasing point of concern because it just feeds into something relatively un-modern which is that quality is reserved. That is not to say couture has to be inclusive, obviously not. Just the idea upon which it relies and perpetuates has ricocheted into other stuff. But again, this is just the fact it personally doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not anti-couture in any sense or whatever.

What I said about promotion shouldn’t be taken as a generalisation.

But tbf I don’t feel like we gonna see this in the same way bro lmao I don’t like this article either and I wanted to comment on it but now I’m caught up in something else lol my bad.

 

[susseinmcswanny]

it wasn’t modern when Brigitte Bardot, I think, said it was for grannies in the 1960s. Has it ever truly been modern?

Lol really though like in every decade in every century people always get the idea that FASHION IS DEAD or something like that because it doesn't come in the same exact form as it did in the oh so amazing golden years. That stylezeitgeist guy is always overintellectualizing everything to let everyone know how knowledgeable he thinks he is.

 

[Cocteau Stone]

I mean it is because it exists now but fashion itself isn't really that modern, it's a pretty archaic field. He should probably be asking himself if his views are that modern, if at all.

But couture allows us to see what the ateliers can do. Rare to find them used to their fullest potential (this and the last couple of couture season have been tough to go through ffor this reason alone), however when it is done right I'd rather appreciate the traditions and crafts that can make clothes look and like "fashion". Sometimes it doesn't have to be that complicated nor "modern".

Also, if he wants to talk about issues with fashion feeling too conservative, he is partly to blame. All the op-eds, purveyors and self made critics enhancing the spectacle of scrutiny prevent many designers from really going for it.

 

[LadyJunon]

Another factor to his opinion is his strong resentment towards the bourgeoisie (something he has expressed several times on Instagram). He's free to think whatever he wants, but I feel that he's ignorant of the fact that the bourgeoisie (anyone in the upper 30 - 50% who's older than 30) is the backbone of high-fashion, even the ready-to-wear.

On the matter of sustainability, Haute Couture is one of the few sectors in mainstream fashion where such practices are the overall norm. Numerous emerging designers borrow and adapt methods from the Couture model to advance their sustainability initiatives. It's absolutely possible for ready-to-wear at a designer/luxury price point to be sustainable, but it's never a certain rule.

Out of the 32 designers that show on the schedule, only 9 of them use it as a vehicle to push accessories and perfumes and even out of those 9, Armani and Chanel have substantial loyal clientèles in that sector. The rest of the Federation is composed of independent/semi-independant ateliers and smaller corporate houses that have clothes as their main bottom line.

Haute Couture may not be the main support for the multi-billion-euro brands, but they represent a significant chunk of the visibility and business for small to moderately-sized designers on that schedule.

Also, his use of the term "abolish" in the comments disgusts me...

 

[susseinmcswanny]

That article was a tough read. It sounds like he's just saying he's kinda jealous that he's not an elite.

He's so anti elite but so pro consumerism? He isn't proposing that we should all be democratic in focusing on the art and craft of tailoring. He's saying the elite should start being more covert with their money again. Citing how 2008 was so ethical because it pulled back with the excess in times of financial crisis when in reality it just depraved people of art while being shoved the regular corporate consumeristic sh*t down our throats in a more mundane fashion instead. Why every single thing we wear has to be outsourced to a conglomerate's factory or slave labor disguised as some pseudo atelier with an astronomical markup. Making your own clothes is not in the realm of thought for most people because it's just a given you go to walmart, marshalls, h&m, zara, whatever when you need a new garment. And now he's proposing that when we want to dream we should get rid of the very thing that is specifically designated to be the apotheosis of what making clothes can be by looking at ready to wear for inspiration instead?? Because it's more democratic?? Touch grass!!!!!

 

[MulletProof]

I mean it is because it exists now but fashion itself isn't really that modern, it's a pretty archaic field. He should probably be asking himself if his views are that modern, if at all.

This. If you look at fashion's place in the trajectory of... humans, it really is a tiny dot despite clothing having a massive role in our survival, and so new in its current format, and often in a cul-de-sac, unable to collectively figure out how to stay.. needed. Fashion will not live for as long as we need clothing, it moves forward by attaching itself to technological and sociopolitical waves that they can then create aspirational clothing around.

Designers like CCP, Paul Harnden, they are in a way applying the same motto of creating one-of-a-kind garments that are NOT for the 'gram or a nightclub but high-quality investments that you can keep for decades. Why is that seen with more respect than a whole side of the industry built on the exact same values and that can be just as dogmatic and is also surrounded by the wall of income that will remain impenetrable for most people throughout their lives? it really isn't too wild to assume that one is serious because it caters men that ideally should be rich and thin in order to honor these designs and not deform them, and that the other is the always more reprehensible activity of...catering to rich and thin women (not 'set').

I think there's a bit of income bracket resentment + 'fashion's the center of my universe', unnecessary storm in a teacup that leaves a lot of blanks without ever explaining why is haute couture, of all purchases, so infuriating and scandalous. The day Nahel died, a Klimt broke the record as the most expensive artwork ever sold in Europe. Haute couture, for the 1% of the 1% is seriously, without exaggeration, peanuts, it is low-value, and it is money that, unlike art, they will never get back and it costs even less than what they pay just for shipping the artworks they buy with more frequency than the 6-month cycle of couture. It is as functional and scandalous as a stupidly heavy Rick Owens table, is that a masked ball too? would you say 'sorry I have to pass on the table, Ukraine and Syria are in my thoughts'?

The faux sensitivity of cancelling a show is performative and I get it, commodity activism might compensate for cancellation costs in the long run, clearly even the more skeptical ones buy this s*it, but it certainly did not come from the 'unfairness' and ugliness of police brutality. Disregarding the system and disrupting a calendar for no good reason is a tough game many want to play but many also lose once it's escalated and you get a call from the powers that be. The idea that an operations team looks through the window, eyeballs the situation and determines the level of safety is laughable at best. You're in touch with city officials the moment you're going to disrupt traffic and you need security protocols (which you do if your label needs to cater to deranged pop fanatics). By the time they filter out info to the media that a movement is dying down or taking force in the suburbs because, hello, sm surveillance, you can trust that is what's happening. So sensitivity lol? since when?. There are precedents in people that have a genuine interest and sensibility. Ever seen that same designer photographing Berber youth? cool Algerian girls? bands from the banlieues? brown up-and-coming musicians? or any other person of North African descent like he is?, the only precedent is Eurocentrism at a max, to be as white-passing as possible and lust after the blondest of the blond.

I actually don't think the author is overintellectualizing things, I think it's good that people ask questions no matter how seemingly stupid they seem, and that they question people who carry themselves as if they were above questioning. Fashion by default is centered on the wow factor and praise so anyone who practices that is okay in my book. I just think the article is half-baked. This, for instance, is soo so out of touch:

a wistful throwback to a world of class division, racial inequality, and conservative morals that hardly feels modern today.

A throwback? so we're not in a world of class division, racial inequality and conservative morals anymore? okay..


Anyway s*it happens. I do love faust. Every time we get newbies here and they clutch their pearls like 'omg why are you so worked up?! it's just fashion! don't be a h8ter!' and a year later they're writing full paragraphs and getting into debates... that was faust and the potentially pedantic, possibly elitist, 'they're out to get me' foundation he built on here before he built SZ, and for that I'll always be grateful... we would be a forum of nothing but 'yas queen, Madalena is back!' if it wasn't for him.

 

[blueorchid]

Lol really though like in every decade in every century people always get the idea that FASHION IS DEAD or something like that because it doesn't come in the same exact form as it did in the oh so amazing golden years. That stylezeitgeist guy is always overintellectualizing everything to let everyone know how knowledgeable he thinks he is.

Truly. Last summer when I had too much time on my hands and ended up reading the WWD archives for fun, the death of haute couture is a tale as old as time as it seems. Personally, my favourite "haute couture is dead" moments are from the mid-90s to YSL's retirement were every other couturier fighting with YSL/Berge (who, of course, said it was DEAD after he retired) and being upset by their claims that couture was dead. I believe Emanuel Ungaro was quoted as saying: "he insults us all!!"

 

[yslforever]

Truly. Last summer when I had too much time on my hands and ended up reading the WWD archives for fun, the death of haute couture is a tale as old as time as it seems. Personally, my favourite "haute couture is dead" moments are from the mid-90s to YSL's retirement were every other couturier fighting with YSL/Berge (who, of course, said it was DEAD after he retired) and being upset by their claims that couture was dead. I believe Emanuel Ungaro was quoted as saying: "he insults us all!!"

And that was true, YSL often said that Ungaro was the first colourblind couturier.

 

[blueorchid]

And that was true, YSL often said that Ungaro was the first colourblind couturier.

I don’t know about that. Some of Sonia Knapp’s textile designs for Ungaro were much more bold and interesting than what Yves was doing at certain times.

 

[Cocteau Stone]

Reading it again it is pretty contradictory. What humours me the most is that yes, the criticisms are valid and should be discussed, but the presence of these fields still give him his voice and job. If these things didn't exist, what would he - and essentially any of us - be talking about? Also difficult to feel like this is counter culturing when his writings and demeanor feed into that archetype of fashion industry and system people. Hard to take at face value when what he does now is effectively a system in of itself, so really one should want to counter the counter culture that he's created for himself but that's also a whole other can of worms.

I suppose it is a way to highlight his "outsider looking in" approach/feelings and holding onto some bitterness, which is kind of seen in that rather odd article NY Times did on Guram for Vetements. Does feed into the tortured/misunderstood artist rhetoric and potentially has him biting the hands that feeds him. However, if given the chance he would probably be more than happy to sidle on into the upper echelon of fashiondom. He already does in some way, couture is just the best of the best (still in his eyes too, considering the remarks).

Fashion is always dead or dying. That is it's nature after all. When you say it's o-v-e-r, just make sure you don't fall out of a window to ensure your words have some impact.

 

[JohannesL]

Isn't high fashion always about elitism having more to do with tradition other than modernity? Every time when I scrolled down the "Haute Couture Clients" thread, I couldn't help but google their names and was not surprised to find that those with obscene money are paying those (haute couture business) wanting to make money. In a way, the haute couture business is not "going woke" and will never be. Instead of writing a piece on woke corporate capitalism of haute couture, I wonder if the writer is willing to spend the time exposing the corruption of liberal and conservative politicians and their allies with integrity supposing he is really caring about "class division" and "racial inequality".

 

[avonlea002]

Why does everything have to be modern?

 

[tourbillions]

im sure its a lot more modern and sustainable than overpriced rtw that mostly ends up on discount stores.