Haute Couture Clients

[Street_a_Licious]

i still love that Japonism collection.... god, gorgeous!

 

[Love$2shop]

How many of those women actually made their own fortunes instead of marrying into money or inheriting?

Who cares ... B)

 

[Dkammern]

^exactly!

in fact, many of the women in the Secret World of Haute Couture documentary are powerful working women, no?

 

[Fontenrose]

Young at Haute

At 24, Chanel fan Jade Lau is a new convert to the cult of couture.

wmagazine

Jade Lau, wearing a Chanel couture dress and a Chanel ready-to-wear cardigan, in a hallway at The New School

Like many college students studying abroad, Jade Lau wears jeans, takes public transit, volunteers, does her own laundry and visits her family on breaks from school. But the soft-spoken young woman has an additional reason to cut class that few of her university peers share: couture shows and fittings. Since 2005 Lau has been a regular client at Chanel—emblematic of a new generation of customers, mostly from the Far East and Russia, who are keeping high fashion growing. A natural beauty with wash-and-go hair, little makeup and few airs, Lau lights up when she recalls her first encounter with the world’s most expensive clothes. Thanks to the fact that her late mother, Theresa, was an important client of Chanel Fine Jewelry and ready-to-wear, Jade was invited to the fall 2005 couture show at the Paris house. Afterward, she told her father, Hong Kong real-estate titan Joseph Lau, how much she had loved Karl Lagerfeld’s spellbinding coat and dress presentation, which was featured in Francis Veber’s 2006 film The Valet.
“I thought I was just there to watch the show, and that was going to be the highlight of my trip,” Lau recalls. “And then [my father] caught me by surprise and said, ‘Well, if you really like it, you can get something.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ I was 21.”
According to Lagerfeld, the numbers of fresh-faced recruits to the couture are rising. “There are more and more younger women with more and more money,” he says. Clients of all ages are also seeking more youthful styles today. “Why buy couture and look dated?” Lagerfeld asks. “Designers have to keep the spirit of their dresses in the mood of the moment.”
When Lau ordered a black wool coat and a ribbon-trimmed evening dress for a New Year’s Eve ball in Hong Kong, she became the first member of her family to own a couture piece. Wealthy Asians typically spend more money on things like fine jewelry, she notes. “Because I am the younger one, [my family] thinks that I should be the one taking care of myself and looking nice,” Lau says matter-of-factly. “Obviously, they have more authority or right or money to order it for themselves, but they are just happy for me. I’m very lucky.”
Lau, who is working on her master’s degree in psychology at The New School for Social Research in New York, has been under fashion’s spell for a long time. Born in Toronto, she grew up in one of the great shopping capitals, Hong Kong. At age 12, she intercepted one of her mother’s Chanel deliveries and discovered that a long-sleeve dress fit her perfectly. And when she was at the Institut Le Rosey boarding school in Switzerland, she and her friends preferred glossy magazines to textbooks.
By Miles Socha
Photographed by Sean Donnola

February 2008

 

[thesiren]

what a lucky, luck gal.

 

[jackieonassis]

Yea lucky girl!

 

[Party_Vixen]

^ I'm speechless. What a lucky girl.

 

[laurelie]

She is so lucky!!! I hope she knows how lucky she is.

 

[thesiren]

omg, so do you think she's lucky?

 

[fashionista-ta]

Back on topic ... I love the part about how she "intercepted" her mother's Chanel package

 

[Trista]

I have to agree with that-the best I could "intercept" were L'Oreal eyeshadow quads.

 

[Fontenrose]

Says the Chanel spokesperson, "If there is a different between today's generation and the previous one, it's that they are in a much bigger hurry, so teams from the atelier find themselves travelling ever more frequently."

Flare, Dec 07 The Young and the Excess

Lots of interesting quotes in this article. "couture's new client is in her 20s",
from Asia, Russia, etc., lots of interest in couture daytime wear.. clients don't go to the HC shows, lots of opportunity for new designers...

sorry, wish I could OCR the whole article, but it wasn't my copy.

 

[LetThemEatCake]

Back on topic ... I love the part about how she "intercepted" her mother's Chanel package

Me too.

 

[SHSH]

shes holding her hermes like a trophy haha she looks cute tho

 

[Fontenrose]

Haute couture: Class of 2008

independent.co.uk

Lou Doillon, 25, the daughter of Jane Birkin is one of several members of new crop of noticeably young couture clients.

They're young, well heeled, with a passion for fashion. If it's bright and cool, they want it. Meet the new force in haute couture.

They are hardly your archetypal big fashion spenders. Many are barely out of university and would make more normal targets for chains such as Topshop and Hennes & Mauritz. But that is not deterring a new generation of designer addicts who have thrown an unlikely lifeline to some of the biggest names in the rarefied world of haute couture.
Jostling for front-row status with celebrities such as Claudia Schiffer and Victoria Beckham at last week's Paris shows was a new crop of couture clients who are more likely to take fashion cues from hit US television shows such as Gossip Girl than the creations traditionally whipped up by the cream of the luxury world.
Hind Hariri, who, in her early 20s, was until recently the world's youngest dollar billionaire, headed a pack that included Lou Doillon, 25, the daughter of Jane Birkin, and several Middle Eastern princesses. The class of 2008 also featured Aleksandra Melnichenko, 30, the wife of the Russian coal magnate Andrey Melnichenko, and Kirsty Bertarelli, who is a former Miss United Kingdom and is married to the billionaire sailing champion Ernesto Bertarelli.
Ms Hariri, a recent graduate of the Lebanese American University in Beirut, inherited her $1.5bn fortune when her father, Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated in 2005. Taking her cue from her couture client elders, she keeps a low profile outside of her home country, where she campaigned for her half-brother Saad in the last elections.
Her couture weakness is Chanel but she likes to save it for special occasions, telling the fashion trade bible, Women's Wear Daily: "Couture is for when I am representing my family. I'm more into prêt-à-porter."
Rachel Sharp, editor of Harper's Bazaar Middle East, said: "The older generation of Arabic women didn't embrace Western fashion in the way that the younger generation does."
The new couture customer has helped to drive a remarkable turnaround for an industry that many had written off as a dying art as recently as a couple of years ago. Darren Cabon, of the London College of Fashion, said the fashion world is witnessing "a new wave of neo-couture". He added: "Couture is getting younger. A lot of new wealth is being inherited which means girls have money at a young age and they want to dress in clothes that perhaps their mothers wouldn't have worn."
Mr Cabon singled out Jean Paul Gaultier and Chanel as the two houses leading the drive to woo younger customers. Chanel's couture show last week prompted WWD to declare that its designer, Karl Lagerfeld, had "gone for the youth vote". The magazine added: "The real news [was] an unmistakable out-with-the-old vibe". The show beckoned, it said, to the "sweet bird of youth".
Other popular designers include Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci and Anne Valerie Hash, whose show kicked off the bi-annual haute couture season, and also Elie Saab, the Lebanese couturier whose collection was dubbed "Barbie bling" by one fashion editor.
Christophe Caillaud, president of Jean Paul Gaultier, said last year: "What we see is that more ladies are coming together with their daughters to buy pieces." He added that he believed the new generation would make "our future base of clients".
And Givenchy's chief executive, Marc Gobetti, has said that prominent Middle East families are inviting their "very chic" daughters and nieces into the couture club, which helped the once-ailing Givenchy enjoy a 30 per cent jump in couture orders last year.
Chanel
The couture house courted the young with its autumn/winter collection. Designer Karl Lagerfeld has seen the potential of the new high-spenders
Irina Abramovich
The ex-wife of Britain's most famous Russian resident, Roman, likes to mix couture with ready-to-wear pieces by designers such as Ralph Lauren. She has a cool $300m to spend, post-divorce
Hind Hariri
The daughter of the late Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri saves couture for special occasions, when she is representing her family. Her fortune is a whopping $1.5bn
Kirsty Bertarelli
The Geneva resident and former Miss UK who wed into billions likes Christian Dior, Armani Privé and Chanel. Her husband made his money from a family pharmaceuticals firm
Aleksandra Melnichenko
She chops and changes between Chanel, Lacroix and Givenchy. The cost? The small change from nearly $3bn in her coal magnate husband's bank account
Yuki Tan
The Chinese business magnate runs the jewellery-to-accessories chain Folli Follie. For her, buying couture from Giorgio Armani and Givenchy is buying into a dream



The Independent,

By Susie Mesure
Sunday, 27 January 2008

 

[fashionista-ta]

shes holding her hermes like a trophy haha she looks cute tho

That's funny ... I remember when the owner of a jewelry boutique I go to had a new croc Birkin, she had it out on the counter (in my way, I couldn't see what was underneath & around it), clearly fishing for compliments. There were none from me ... it's still just your bag, does it need to be taken so seriously?

 

[KKnardi]

^exactly. the young couture clientele is very spoiled!

 

[eugenius]

Ooh, I wonder if our very own Chanel_Girl will be buying couture this year

 

[*Happiness*]

awwww, must be a wonderful life.....attend the couture shows.....buy the couture....

 

[Fontenrose]

Clearly, Chanel is selling--recession be damned!
Evidence? The several dozen Miami locals who hit the after party toting the latest, greatest arm-candy--which can run up to $4,000 per fix. A dozen clients even sported head-to-toe runway looks from spring. "I've seen my mom buy this stuff since I was 10 years old," said Anna Kournikova, who confessed to owning over 20 Chanel handbags herself.

Sounds like good marketing