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Haute Couture Alive and Kicking

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  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    Haute Couture Alive and Kicking



    Well, that's good news. Yohji should get back into this game!



    From WWD

    Super Rich Keep Buying: Paris Couture Houses See Good Times Roll On













    PARIS ?
    One morning last January, a clutch of well-dressed women gathered
    outside the Christian Lacroix fashion house on the Rue du Faubourg
    Saint-Honoré.

    But the occasion wasn't a sample sale. Rather it
    was the day after Lacroix's summer couture show, and some of the most
    privileged women in the world were anxious to get dibs on some of the
    most expensive clothes in the world.

    "At 8:30, they're in front
    of the door," marveled Marie Martinez, the chic, silver-haired couture
    director at Lacroix. "They know that after it's sold, it's impossible
    to have. They want to be the first appointment."

    Such impatience
    is a potent symbol that couture continues to flourish despite
    widespread economic turmoil. What's more, it's expanding international
    customer base ? flush with wealth, and increasingly from destinations
    to the east ? is demanding more exclusivity and service than ever. As
    Paris gears up for four days of high fashion shows starting today,
    couture bosses are bullish, citing high double-digit sales gains last
    year and predicting strong attendance this week from a widening swath
    of clients, many from emerging markets with explosive wealth like the
    Middle East, Russia and Asia.

    And as further proof that couture
    is defying gravity, executives said they have yet to note any dip in
    U.S. business so far, despite the economic turmoil there.

    "What
    is most important is that haute couture is the ultimate luxury. It's
    about design, exclusivity, custom-made refinement, and the most
    exclusive and unique service," said Bruno Pavlovsky, president of the
    fashion division at Chanel, which saw couture sales rise more than 20
    percent last year.

    He also noted that the fashion house's
    January collection, which had models strolling out of a giant Chanel
    jacket erected in the Grand Palais, was one of its most successful to
    date.

    While the numbers in couture are small, in terms of
    clients and the production output, Pavlovsky sensed the comeback of
    sizeable orders. "The last one was eight dresses in one shot," he said.

    "The
    demand for very, very high-end products continues to be very strong,"
    agreed Sidney Toledano, president of Christian Dior, citing an increase
    in couture sales of more than 35 percent last year and a "strong
    double-digit" growth so far this year. "Very rich people are not
    suffering from the crisis. The workshops have been very busy," he said.


    Only a few years ago, plenty in the industry were sounding the
    death knell for couture as a long list of houses discontinued the
    activity, including Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro, Balmain,
    Jean-Louis Scherrer and Hanae Mori.

    Now, sales of the remaining
    players have been roaring ahead ? so much so that many couture houses
    are expanding their ateliers and hiring more temporary workers to keep
    up with demand.

    "We are globally on a good trend of steady
    growth," said Christophe Caillaud, president of Jean Paul Gaultier. "We
    sometimes prefer to refuse orders when we reach the limits of our
    production capabilities rather than trying to do the production with
    less-experienced hands."

    Executives downplayed the impact of unfavorable currency exchange and the economic downturn in America and other regions.

    "We
    saw a definite psychological barrier when the euro went over $1.50,"
    acknowledged Nicolas Topiol, chief executive at Lacroix. "But at the
    end of the day, the orders from the U.S. were pretty good."

    In
    fact, sales of Lacroix's summer collection jumped 40 percent versus a
    year ago, with emerging markets more than offsetting slower-growth
    regions, Topiol said.

    "We cannot really say that our American
    clientele is affected by the American economy ? not at that level of
    fortune," said Gaultier's Caillaud. "Our regular customers did not
    reduce their budget for the moment. We should have a better visibility
    at the end of the year 2008 and get a more tangible view."

    Giorgio
    Armani, who entered the couture arena in 2005, is expecting more
    American clients this week, along with new potential clients from
    London and Madrid.

    "We have not seen any real impact in the
    couture world from the generally negative economic climate," said
    Robert Triefus, Armani's executive vice president, worldwide
    communications. "This seems to underscore the widely held belief that
    at this level of the market, clients are impervious to economic
    downturns."

    Indeed, couture directors and their staffs are increasingly jetting around the world to service a far-flung customer base.

    Martinez
    said Lacroix's couture team is on the road at least one week a month,
    and the collection travels each season to New York and also Los
    Angeles, where some new Mexican clients come for fittings. At its show
    on Tuesday, Lacroix is awaiting new clients from Russia, Singapore, the
    Middle East and Asia.

    At Chanel, the team travels between two
    and three times a month to meet with clients for fittings or sales
    appointments, Pavlovsky said.

    "We have to keep it totally
    exclusive, but there is no limit to the service in haute couture," said
    Pavlovsky. "We are ready to go anywhere to see a customer. We are
    traveling more and more. Now when a customer needs something, we have
    to go to her."

    Over the past year, the Chanel team flew to
    Jamaica, Greece, Switzerland, the U.K., Russia, and several times to
    the Middle East for three major weddings.

    "This clientele is
    very demanding and requires a lot of attention," Caillaud at Gaultier
    agreed. "We can be asked to go to a boat in Monte Carlo, as well as to
    a chalet in Gstaad or a palace in Riyadh for just a day."

    Gaultier's
    team travels for fittings and presentations about 25 times a year and
    "quite often our destination is given to us at the last minute," he
    added.

    Marco Gobbetti, chairman and chief executive officer at
    Givenchy, which saw its summer couture sales "almost double," said the
    generally "positive trend" in couture is due to growing wealth around
    the world and a multiplication of dressy occasions in those regions.
    But he also noted that designer ready-to-wear is becoming more and more
    "democratic," insofar as it is readily available on a worldwide basis.

    "Not
    so long ago, fashion was for the elite. Now it's part of everyday
    life," he said. For women who wish to stand out, couture represents
    "the ultimate in dressing yourself....It's the search for the ultimate
    in refinement in luxury and services," he said.

    Executives noted couture's newest recruits are younger, more active and more likely to wear high fashion in everyday life.

    "New
    clients probably buy haute couture in a more spontaneous way than
    traditional ones. They don't have a special occasion to wear it in
    mind. They like the idea of something special and custom-made that
    makes them feel unique," Pavlovsky said. "They wear it in a more casual
    way: an haute couture jacket with jeans or an haute couture dress with
    a cardigan."

    Caillaud said Gaultier's European and American
    clients tend to order a minimum of four to five suits, short dresses,
    cocktail or evening dresses that they wear throughout the season.

    Middle
    Eastern clients are famous for requesting evening dresses they wear on
    only one occasion and also special wedding dresses. Gaultier makes an
    average of four to five wedding gowns a year, each requiring between
    200 and 500 hours of work, Caillaud said.

    But he noted that more
    Middle Eastern clients are now ordering suits and European style
    dresses, adding yet another leg to the expanding couture business.

    Executives
    also called couture a key point of differentiation for their brands,
    and a way of expressing their excellence. Dior, for example, displayed
    a suite of couture dresses at a recent boutique-opening gala in
    Istanbul, and has featured couture in exhibitions or window displays at
    its boutiques in Tokyo and Moscow.

    "People are amazed everywhere
    when we show pieces of couture. It's the best ambassador for the image
    of the brand," Toledano said. "It's the best way of talking about our
    savoir faire."


    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
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