Haute Couture Influences Ready-to-wear

Fashion has been around ever since ancient times, since the time of the Romans, it survived the world wars and is yet today a business with rapid changes. Fashion started off as an art form, a way for the riches to show their social status with unique and innovative designs that only they could afford. It was a way to separate the social classes of the society. In this paper I will include the creator of haute couture, and how the following designers developed couture, as well as having leading names in today’s ready-to-wear industry. The list is long, but I chose to focus on the three most important designers of the modern fashion industry.

Haute Couture

Haute Couture is the French term for high fashion, and it relates to the dressmaking, sewing, or needlework of a garment. In 1886, Charles Frédéric Worth founded an association of couture houses dedicated to regulate and protect the work of Parisian couturiers, and it later evolved to La Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. (Mackenzie 47). The term Haute Couture is protected by law in which one must adhere to specific criteria’s stated by the Syndical Chamber for Haute Couture in order to be categorized under its name. The criterion to be categorized as Haute Couture is a minimum of fifteen people employed at the house, producing one-of-a-kind garments of the highest craftsmanship and quality, as well as it has to be presented to the press in Paris each season.

A haute couture garment is hand customized by a couture house, and is made from the highest level of quality. The garment are specifically made for its carrier, and is due to its delicate and exclusive fabric only fitted on its future wearer one time before the garment goes into production.

Haute couture and ...

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Fashion in the 21th century is a big business, as its production employs millions of people and generates billions of dollars in revenue. Fashion has for the past century been, and is still today, used as an indicator of social change and progress, as it changes with the social norms of the society and the political changes of the world (Finkelstein 3).

Works Cited

Finkelstein, Joanne. Fashion: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Print.

Jones, Terry, and Rushton, Susie. ICONS: Fashion Now. Köln: Taschen, 2006. Print.

Mackenzie, Mairi. ...isms: Understanding Fashion. London: Herbert Press, 2009. Print.

Rennolds Milbank, Caroline. Couture, The Great Designers. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc. Publishers, 1985. Print.

Stegemeyer. Anne. Who's who in Fashion. 4th Edition. New York: Fairchild Books, 2003. Print