Haute means stylish and Couture is designing high fashion expensive dresses by expert seamstresses. The couturiers use time consuming and hand-executed techniques to prepare dresses. Charles Frederic Worth (1826-1895 was considered as the father of the Haute Couture, which is a protected name in France, being used by well-defined firms, who were fashion designers or trend setters. It dates back to 18th century when the art, architecture, music and fashions of the court at Versailles got established. Later it was imitated across Europe through fashion fanfares, which brought those dresses to their country and got them copied by the local dressmakers to serve the need of high fashion for affordable customers. These dress makers who follow particular standard fall in the category of couturiers. Few others joined the business during the last few years and their number grew up to fourteen, out of which ten were recognized by French consortium.
To gain recognition they organize fashion shows to display their garments by slipping them on reputed models that walk on the ramp. They don�t earn much from the direct sale as huge expenses are involved into it, but the shows add an aura of fashion into their adventure. Due to falling revenues and high prices of haute couture some firms who didn�t get enough clientele ceased to exist and there is a big competition among the rest of them. After 1960 the trend was high jacked to New York by moderates, rockers and hippies and this important city became the hub of the internationalization of the fashion scene. Rich woman no longer felt that the Paris dress was better than the dresses sewn in NY, but the Paris and Italy are still pre-eminent in the fashion world, even though no longer considered the main architect of fashion. For ordinary people these items are luxury items, and are associated with affluence. Thus there are few wealthy customers to buy this exclusive stuff.
Haute Couture is a buying agency in India that secures apparels, accessories, leather goods and home furnishings. Their established chain and excellent services enable the clients to avail the right product at the right time with excellent quality and competitive prices. They assure high quality goods to individual enthusiasts. Their trend and new development in fabrics are likely to be the latest in the fashion craze. Couturiers do their best from fabric selection to inspection of the finished products. They also maintain online fine Art Photo Gallery and bring the posters and special offers. It is now a well established industry where thousands of artisans and models have got particular kind of jobs to pull on advantageously. It is not for everyone and those who are interested look to the haute couture fashion and keep their eyes yearning. They remain close and go behind the scenes to look at fashion shows eagerly. The firms also participate in blogs to remain in touch with their clients. They have opened institutes to give training to workers for expanding the area of their business.
In France and Italy the business is controlled by the syndicate chambers for Haute Couture in Paris and Milan, which is regulated by the Department of Industry in those countries. The rules permit them to employ 15 persons or more and present their collection twice a year, and must include 35 separate outfits for day and evening wear. The fashion giants in USA are Christian Dior, Coco Chanel and Pierre Cardin. They generate more than $ 1 billion in annual sales and employ close to 5000 people including 2200 seamstresses which specialize in one area only. The garments supplied by them are in 3 fittings. One dress usually takes 100 to 400 hours, costing $26000 to $1,00,000. A tailored suit starts at $16,000 and evening gown at $60,000. Today only 2000 women in the world buy couture clothes and out of them 60% is American. Only 200 are regular customers in the whole world. The couture often loan clothes to movie stars or other public figures for publicity. There is an official site of Couture Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the city of New York.
In India there are 11 fashion houses while FDCI gave 13 names for the Delhi couture week. After the judges worked out for more designers some of them who deserved got left out. There was no specific list and the jury depended on hearsay and press coverage to decide about their eligibility. It is yet to see whether the new entrants meet the stringent standards set by the syndicate. As per procedure they will examine their clothes inside out and to compare them on international couture ramps. Indian couture is new to this concept and we need to validate very selective firms. It has to be an exclusive club, not requiring the certificate of media or Bollywood. Woman in India usually match their blouses with saris and get them stitched by expert tailors, and thus doing that they wear custom made dresses which couturiers generally prepare. The couture in India have a strong indigenous signature that is a perfect combination of fine dressmaking with fine craft, having separate identity than the one prevailing in Italy, France and New York.
Couture in India is essentially bridal wear that includes festive and evening wear. They use Indian textiles, silhouettes and embroidery with a twist. They have good saris with matching blouses to fill the wardrobes of eager individual ladies and also to fulfill the need of Bollywood. They show these dresses on the ramp draped by models to show fashion adaptation of various other countries. Indian Fashion Industry is based on our culture, traditions, religious spirit, art and architecture, and has inspired the world. Our designers are now creating waves in the fashion industry. A flash design council of India-KPMG study has put our couture industry at a measly 0.2 % of the total branded apparel market, but now our products are taken seriously and our designers are creating a buzz, which previously was created by the fashion gurus in the west. Our fashions stalwarts are Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, Devaunishi Mehta, Maheep Kapoor, Farah Khan, Pallavi Jaikishan, Varun Bahl, Manish Malhotra, Manav Gangwani, Suneet Verma Monisha Jaisingh have shown dresses based on the fashion trends in India. Our other stars, Ritu Beri, Ashish Soni, JJ Vallaya, Abbas, and Jean Paul Gaultier are creating general simmer in the fashion arena, which is a pleasure to beholders. They have explored the classism of the past by infusing a contemporary twist to fashion in the field of fabrics, dresses, and jewellery.
Our weavers, colours, and varieties in designing of horizontal and vertical stripes are marvellous. The bridal hair style of Indian couture either is purely girlish or boyish crop hair style for ladies has no parallel. We have now impeccable finishing, detailed workmanship at every level. Indian range of international couture covers Sherwin�s. Band gala coats, tunic tops and trousers, embroidered shirts with Chinese collars. They also provide special wedding outfits, �kali� coats; with unique white-n-white resham embroidery is their striking feature. Now international buyers are eyeing the Indian couture market favourably. There is an increasing pressure on Indian designers to give their designs the international touch, still retaining the richness and Indian traditional feel.
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