In the apparel industry, most people are easily confused by common names such as ready-to-wear, high-end clothing, and haute couture. In fact, these names all have their own basic concepts behind them.
Haute Couture is an authentic French nationality. Since its birth in 1858, Haute Couture has more than 150 years of history.
In 1858, Charles Frederick Worth introduced the concept of design to the fashion industry for the first time, and in Paris he opened a high-end clothing store named after his personal name that was tailor-made for the upper class. This is the first haute couture clothing store in history. Worth appeared for the first time as a designer rather than a traditional tailor. When his design was favored by the Queen of France, he was even more famous. The royal aristocrats around the world are eager to pay for not only the high prices of clothing, but also proud to have Worth designs.
In 1868, the French Advanced Custom Wear Union was officially established.
The authoritative organization of Paris's first haute couture dress designer, which is now the Advanced Custom Apparel Confederation, has made strict regulations on the scale, technical conditions, and details of the conference. After a hundred years, Parisian haute couture stores still adhere to these traditions.
Haute Couture must satisfy four conditions at the same time:
First, there are studios in Paris that can participate in two women's shows in January and July each year organized by the Haute Couture Women’s Association.
Secondly, there must be at least 75 designs to be displayed by the chief designer at the end of every display. There are three or more full-time models for the fourth year. The number of garments in each style is very small and basically completed by hand.
After meeting the above conditions, it must be approved by the French Ministry of Industry before it can be named "Haute Couture".
In 1945, the French government set a series of standards for the industry. In the end, only 20 companies, including Chanel, Christian Dior, and Yves saint Laurent, were qualified for advanced custom clothing.
Customization process:
The designer creates according to the customer's unique needs.
Customize the model according to the customer's size, and perform three-dimensional cutting on the model's embryonic cloth. The pattern maker uses paperboard to make patterns.
The chief sewing engineer used a fabric to make a sample, and the customer tried on and modified it.
The seamstress cuts and sew with the selected fabric.
During the test setup, the details must be modified and adjusted. A set of clothes must be tried at least 3 times to complete.
Since Haute Couture uses a large number of hand-embroidered beads in its production, it is not surprising that the price is over US$250,000, and there is no embroidery style of US$ 1-2 million. Global Haute Couture only has about 2,000 permanent customers, and today there are less than 20 premium custom clothing brands.
Ready-to-wear translated from French Pret-a-porter
It refers to certain technologies that have retained or inherited Haute couture to a certain extent, aiming at middle-class and small-volume multi-variety high-grade clothing. It is a clothing industry between Haute couture and mass-produced cheap clothing (French called Confection) that is aimed at the general public.
The name was first used in World War II. This was a sideline of Haute couture. By the 1960s, due to changes in people's lifestyle, the high-end garment industry flourished and replaced the Haute couture.
Paris, New York, Milan, London's four major fashion weeks, is the release of senior clothing and conduct transactions.
The difference between high-grade garments and general garments is not only the size of their batches, but also their quality and the key lies in their design's personality and taste. Therefore, the international advanced garments are generally some designer brands.
Garments
Garments refer to finished garments that are produced in batches according to certain specifications and type standards. It is a concept that appears in relation to tailor-made tailor-made and self-made garments. As an industrial product, garments are in line with the economic principle of mass production, production mechanization, serialization of product scale, standardization of quality, and unification of packaging, along with identifications of brands, fabric components, types, washing and maintenance instructions.