• 11/09/2022
• By binternet
• 725 Views

Haute couture: behind the scenes of the parades<

Elegance finds all his senses.For this first fashion week in real since March 2020, the real luxury is to associate the sight to the touch.Maria Grazia Chiuri celebrates Dior poetry.Material and mastery, textiles and texture games, exceptional know-how and endless creativity: in Paris, Haute Couture fall-winter 2021-2022 stands out as the living mirror of a world that is reborn ... andlack of fabric.

Regulars have returned.European, American.The Chinese and the Russians were unlucky: vaccines administered in their country do not allow them to enter France.Before we asked the customers if they were Chanel or Dior, today if they are Sputnik or Pfizer.As for the Middle Easts, they remained suspicious: with a regulation, very strict and even more variable, they were afraid to find themselves confined abroad.

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What does it matter!These ladies are virtually there, connected by zoom and other personal apps to their favorite claws.We are talking about 4,000 haute couture customers across the planet, including 200 to 400 faithful from the Parisian gold triangle, at the center of all attention: visits to the Coco Chanel suite at Ritz, and even the abbey ofAubazine, the orphanage that inspired him, plunged into the archives of the Dior house, 30, avenue Montaigne - their wishes are all requirements.They can also grow, lose weight, age: retouching is offered for life when you dress haute couture, wherever you are.What if you can't move to renew your wardrobe?No problem.The most prestigious brands have their home collection.

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Some rare designers want to receive their customers personally, like Elie Saab, renowned for his princess dresses claiming thousands of hours of embroidery.The Lebanese creator does not conceive his profession without these privileged links.But there is no question of revealing the names of the crowned heads, celebrities or business women, any more than the amount of their expenses (certain dresses can reach 1 million euros, or even more).You must protect the gold client and protect himself from the generalized spy.Because "the excellence of our know-how is a source of great wealth", explains Xavier Long, of the National Institute of Art Trades.Luxury Highlights estimates the Haute Couture market at 500 million euros in 2020.A dust of the 217 billion sales of luxury products, boosted by "Revanch Purchases" in Asia, the madness that comes after months of frustration.

Some dresses can reach 1 million euros, or even more

Thus, by its appetite, China safeguard our crafts but above all propels luxury groups at the forefront of the world's great fortunes.In its latest ranking, the magazine "Challenges" places in its French top 4 the families holding LVMH groups (Dior, Givenchy ...), Hermès, L’Oréal, Chanel, for a total heritage of more than 377 billion euros.Never seen !Last April, the American magazine "Forbes" counted 2,755 billionaires worldwide, whose cumulative fortune reaches the stratospheric level of almost $ 13,000 billion!It’s the haute couture breeding ground.

It's been eighteen months since the capital had ignited itself to the rhythm of the parades and the sumptuous evenings.A dinner in honor of Frank Gehry at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, another for Chanel at the Palais Galliera, another at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Stock Exchange, for Balenciaga.And the most romantic of the walks is organized in Versailles by Dior, at sunset in the gardens of the Fleuris Trianon of the sculptures of the Lalanne.Stanel, Iman, Issam, Roxanne and Eva, 16, 17 and 18 years old, did not ask for so much.They were not invited anywhere but had made the way from Rouen, Nantes and Créteil to watch the Balenciaga show in front of 10 avenue George-V.

François-Henri Pinault, CEO of the Kering group, insists: "Couture is the know-how with creativity.The very essence of art.»»

Another trendy address: rue de Moussy, one of the oldest in Paris, near Beaubourg.Bishop Cauchon resided there but above all Azzedine Alaïa until his death in 2017 in 2017.Closer to the workshop where he worked, this morning of July 4, the day of the American national holiday, it was effervescence.In front of the neighbors with windows, clients, journalists, a whole world, including a muse, Farida Khelfa, and a popess, Anna Wintour, we kissed, we were getting away while waiting for the first collection of the successor of Azzedine, theBelgian creator Pieter Mulier.From his dive into the archives of forty years of Alaïa codes, Mulier drew a motto: "Luxury, sensuality, heritage".

This knowledge of the past is useful, but to project himself towards tomorrow, François-Henri Pinault, CEO of the Kering group, insists: "Couture is the know-how with creativity.The very essence of art."Pascal Morand, executive president of the federation of haute couture and fashion, praises this" territory of freedom, without commercial constraints ".In the last of the haute couture plumassiers, Lemarié, where there are still a hundred employees, we could not have had to need the reinforcement of forty craftsmen, explains the artistic director Christelle Kocher.From the Chanel show, she retains a tweed weaving coat entirely made of feathers: “Two thousand two hundred hours of work!I would have cried when I saw him finished.»»