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Ready-to-wear couture takes over
Dominique Schroeder
Posted Wed, 16 Jan 2008
As the pace of modern life reduces the number of women able to wait weeks for delivery of an exclusive made-to-measure number from a top Paris couture house, a new halfway concept is emerging.
Neither quite haute couture nor the lowlier if almost as expensive designer ready-to-wear, the novel in-between concept is being dubbed 'pret-a-couture' or 'ready-to-couture'.
"Haute couture is like Versailles, we are happy that people still come to visit," said Jean-Jacques Picart, consultant to the LVMH luxury group, referring to the grand 17th-century royal palace outside Paris that epitomised the country's wealth and refinement.
'Obsolete in commercial terms'
But haute couture, which caters to a shrinking handful of the world's wealthiest women, whose numbers remain a tightly-guarded secret, "is obsolete in commercial terms," added Picart.
From 106 haute couture houses in 1946, only half a dozen currently offer unique hand-made couture creations, and women, said the head of the French Couture Federation, Didier Grumbach, "nowadays seldom want to come for three fittings and wait for three weeks to get the perfect dress".
"But there are intermediate solutions that are a concession to couture, such as a model which is not quite finished and which will be totally completed after a fitting on the client," said Grumbach.
A hybrid concept
Fashion historian Lydia Kamitsis said the new hybrid concept, baptised pret-a-couture by the Italian fashion industry, took off a couple of years ago.
But it was first dreamt up back in the 1960s by then new designers such as Pierre Cardin and Andre Courreges, who broke with the rules of haute couture to invent "intermediary lines", she said.
Garments sold as part of these intermediate lines were produced in small numbers, with adjustments offered to each customer. "It was haute couture, that is, it was exceptional in terms of quality, but it was more accessible price-wise" and destined to younger buyers, Kamitsis said.
Nowadays, what French designer Jerome Dreyfus calls 'couture-a-porter' or 'couture-to-wear', aims to cater to "women's new lifestyle, to their mobility" as well as to the demand for "something unique, something different" said Kamitsis.
"People are not as interested in what's fashionable as in what's different, what's exceptional," Picart told AFP.
Chanel for instance has developed a new "artisan" line incorporating the special know-how of several French craft houses it bought up specialised in hats, pearls, buttons, shoes, feathers and embroidery.
The spirit of couture
"We realised there was increasing demand for clothing that may not be as exclusive as haute couture but that is out of the ordinary, somewhat exceptional," said company spokesperson Veronique Lopez.
"It remains pret-a-porter but is sophisticated, created with the spirit of couture, and is produced in relatively small quantities," she added.
Historian Kamitsis says this new halfway style of couture is particularly popular with small designers such as Gustavo Lins, Felipe Oliveira Baptista or Richard Rene. These houses offer clothing "that is much cheaper than haute couture but comes with the quality and the special touches offered to haute couture customers".
Likewise, Margiela's exceptional garments produced in very limited quantities "are not couture but very, very close to it," said Grumbach. As is Azzedine Alaia, who "doesn't produce haute couture but does adapt his models to each client," he added.
The gap between ready-to-wear and haute couture was closing, said the head of the French Couture Federation. "Little by little they will merge," he said.
AFP
