When Yves Saint Laurent retired in 2002, Pierre Bergé, his eternal companion, said: “It's not that haute couture is dead, but rather that the places to show it off no longer exist.”
It was true. Saint Laurent grew in the post-war years in which Christian Dior sublimated the genre, took charge of the house after the death of its creator in 1957 (ten years after the birth of the new look) and modernized couture under the label with its name in the sixties, seventies and eighties; when those places to which Bergé referred (charity galas, Christmas parties) were still occasions for dressing up for the very rich.
The story of those women, by the way, is now the subject of Ryan Murphy's new series, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. Dior's will also be told in The New Look on Apple TV, and Balenciaga's has its own production at Disney.
Fashion is entertainment and couture has been the tool for brands to stay relevant and amaze with their content for twenty years, when the shows became a kind of showcase for celebrities, marketing machines to boost purchases of fashion products. beauty and small leather goods. The numbers show that this is no longer the scenario in which the industry operates.
The economy, like fashion, is cyclical. As evidenced by LVMH's results for the last quarter of 2023, which reached €24 billion in profits, luxury sells. Not all the luxury, mind you. Its president, Bernard Arnault, assured that to achieve this figure, the highest-end products were crucial, including day suits starting at 20,000 euros and evening dresses that easily exceed several hundred thousand euros. Dior or Fendi.
According to the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the number of regular sewing clients is around four thousand, more than double what it was a decade ago and a big jump from the two hundred that were estimated in the 90.
Of course, there were celebrities. Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Jenner, Zendaya and Hunter Shaffer took front row seats at Schiaparelli, where creative director Daniel Roseberry presented a retro-futuristic collection that included a dress made from pieces of first-generation technological devices, from the fan of a desktop computer to chips or SIM cards.
At Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri once again defended simplicity, and Rihanna's appearance caused the biggest stir of flashes. Armani Privé, in addition to a collection full of looks for the red carpet season, was attended by Gwyneth Paltrow; while at Chanel, the ballet-inspired proposal was reinforced by participation in Margaret Qualley's fashion show.
They were not the only ones who caught the attention of photographers. The final clients, unlike what happens with ready-to-wear, are invited to the shows, and this time discretion was conspicuous by its absence.
Social networks were flooded with Chanel buyers wearing Chanel, by Jean Paul Gaultier dressed by their guest designers (Glenn Martens, Haider Ackermann and Julien Dossena), who witnessed the genius that was the interpretation of the codes of the house signed by Simone Rocha. They are no longer hiding, they want to be seen.
We have entered the new era of superluxury. In it, new names and new ways of understanding fashion coexist with elements from the past that go beyond the hours dedicated to the garments. Few things scream “I'm expensive” or “I'm exclusive” with such elegance than the use of color that Pierpaolo Piccioli applies to his Valentino garments. And then Galliano arrived.
Maison Margiela brought an end to fashion week with its Artisanal collection, although what John Galliano, creative director of the brand for ten years, did was more than a closing, it symbolized a beginning. Sewing, thanks to its clients, once again revolves around creativity. Sewing is again avant-garde.
