The world of haute couture is undeniably fueled by fantasy. Twice a year, clients, friends of the brand, and industry insiders make a pilgrimage to Paris to attend exclusive shows where brands showcase their most excessively opulent designs: each one handmade and more extreme than the next. Think: entirely layered in embroidered, covered in hand-stitched feathers, and all sewn all by hand. In France, the term haute couture is legally protected by the Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris. And the designs don’t come cheap, with the most simple pieces starting at around $50,000 and the more extravagant edging up to nearly $800,000 or more for a single garment.
And in 2024, it’s booming. It’s a hot June day, and we’re just a few days away from the fall 2024 couture shows which will happen in Paris. “In my own experience, I have had brands not be able to give me an appointment until January because they're so booked, which perhaps is because the top economies don’t usually feel a recession,” says Nolan Meader, a stylist who also works with couture clients as an adviser. “I also think that the demand has soared because in a lot of cases, ready-to-wear has increased so much, especially since Covid, that you now see ready-to-wear dresses consistently at $15,000, $20,000, $25,000, $30,000. For not a drastic amount more with couture, you can have something that's made for you and you're the only person in your region or your continent or your country to have it.”
Haute couture has long been associated with society women and events, especially since much of the pieces shown on the runway are gowns. But in 2024, that’s not always the case, and it’s definitely not the only thing clients are buying. “I have one client who runs the gambit where she will buy whatever speaks to her,” says Meader. “And then I have one who actually is kind of the opposite and really tries to buy pieces she can wear a lot.” The latter is partial to jackets, blouses, bustiers, and pants. “I have noticed you’re usually one or the other.”
For many, being a couture client comes generationally. Take Zofia Krasicki for instance. She grew up watching her mother and grandmother buying couture. She’s originally from Melbourne, Australia but now splits her time between London and New York. “I guess I’d always known about it since I was a little girl,” she says by phone, three days before the fall 2024 couture shows will take place. She is currently in the midst of packing her suitcases. “When I started to really think about whether or not I could start having my own collection, I was probably about 25 and I remember I went to my first Valentino show in 2019. That was probably the point where I began the journey, so to speak.” Now, she works with Meader and is a client of Armani Privé, Giambattista Valli, Jean Paul Gaultier and more. “Very few people just kind of get into couture by chance,” she adds.
Krasicki doesn’t just save her precious couture pieces for red carpets or balls, she mixes them in with the rest of her wardrobe. Like the time she wore her haute couture pink bustier top from Jean Paul Gaultier to dinner at Chiltern Firehouse in London. “That’s one of my favorite things to do—mix and match my couture with my everyday wardrobe,” she says. “But obviously I’m not wearing it every Saturday night or something; that would be ridiculous. But I will bring [those pieces] out from time to time, let’s put it that way.” Her most recent acquisitions include several pieces by Armani Privé, among them a gown she recently wore to Cannes which she is the only one in the world to own. “I think if you're buying a dress you're probably looking at least €70,000 and it really ranges from there,” she explains. “But it really does depend how much work had to go into the creation of the garment.
For couture collector Rebecca Vanyo, another client of Meader’s, her very first purchase was a Giambattista Valli cocktail dress, and she also collects pieces from the Parisian haute couture house Stéphane Rolland. One piece she’s very excited about is a blouse from the Simone Rocha couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier, which she is currently in the process of being fitted for. “I do like to shop more sustainably when it comes to couture blouses that can be worn again and again [or] a statement coat that will never go out of style,” she says. “They’re not collecting dust. I’m wearing them and they’re cool, one-of-a-kind pieces that no one else has.”
Long a fan of fashion, Vanyo began collecting haute couture 10 years ago. “It did feel for me, for a long period of time, almost unattainable. I really started to feel confident enough to inquire and start purchasing couture in 2014, which was the year that I got married.” After the biannual couture shows in Paris, she makes a list of what she likes. “I always immediately know what I like, because those pieces haunt me,” she says. “There is a little bit of pressure because they only do one per country. She adds, “It goes up into hundreds of thousands of dollars, but is an art form, and I love collaborating with the designers. It’s a better way to shop, as well as providing support to the fashion houses that make all of our wildest dreams come true.”
Also having its own buying boom in the world of couture? Vintage. Lauren Lepire of Timeless Vixen has been collecting couture for more than two decades, building an archive that she wears, as well as a collection of rare gems that she sells in her L.A. showroom. Lepire started scouring for haute couture on eBay in the ’90s and never stopped. “Sometimes it doesn’t even have a label, and you just know that it’s couture.” she says. “And what’s so fun is through my years of collecting, even the stuff that doesn’t have the labels, through research and through editorials and through museum exhibitions, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, that dress is a Chanel, or, oh my God, that dress is a Lanvin!’”
“Back in the day I found 20 Chanels on eBay,” she says. “I found a lifetime of Diors on eBay. I mean now it’s next to impossible. And I think why that is is because we've become such a social media and technology society that there are no kind of secrets anymore.” While Lepire wears her vintage Ossie Clark haute couture pieces regularly, she saves her more fragile pieces for her archives.
Recently, Lepire has noticed a marked increase in individuals, brands, and museums buying vintage couture from her shop. “A dress that I would've maybe found on eBay for $1,000, I can confidently price in my store for $20,000 now. It’s absolutely crazy, lightning-speed with the progress of how much desire there is for these pieces.” She herself has a list of about 10 holy haute couture grails, which she says she would be willing to pay $25,000 to $50,000 for. “I’m a very emotional buyer,” she says. “Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to what I love. I love wearing my thing, so if it’s something that’s in my size and I know I can actually wear it, it makes it a huge plus for me. I’ll also buy things that I know I will never wear just because they are too fragile.” Case in point: her 1930s Chanel couture pieces. “There are Picassos that people hang on their walls,” she adds. “Well, now we're looking at these designers as these great artists. Now we’re placing it on our body. So I get really happy when I’m able to look at this thing like a piece of art.”
Likewise, the renowned vintage seller Johnny Valencia of Pechuga Vintage has begun selling vintage couture due to demand. His clients, who often dabble in extremely rare Vivenne Westwood or Jean Paul Gaultier, have sort of graduated to haute couture, which he sources by special request. “It’s like you have your steady patrons,” he says. “Without my patrons, I couldn’t sustain this business, but if they want to push the envelope with how rare they want their pieces to be, you have to pay a premium because it’s couture. When I started this business, I didn’t expect us to end here, you know what I mean? Couture died in the eighties. But we’re literally witnessing the revival.”
Despite his finds ending up on a slew of celebrities, from Beyoncé to Shakira, when he’s buying couture, it’s for wealthy individuals without celebrity status. The cost of these pieces–sometimes near $100,000 for a single vintage Chanel couture gown, for example–is a risky investment otherwise. “I think the more famous the celebrity, the more frugal the team happens to be,” he says. “Who is buying couture? Strictly private clients—women that have very successful businesses in my experience.”
Many of the people who have been buying vintage couture have often been doing it for decades, like Adam Leja, who has amassed over 5,000 pieces ranging from a robe de style dress from Jean Lanvin dated 1925 (a similar piece is at The Costume Institute) to shoes from the Egyptian collection by John Galliano for Dior worn on the runway by Elise Crombez. He will often pay over $10,000 for a rare couture gown, but has found other, more affordable pieces for less than $5,000. “I love couture because it is unique,” he says. “If you look inside a garment, you will see all the magic: the excellent construction, the details in stitching, and most of all the hand finishing of seams. The special ways to close a garment for the purpose of excellent fit with hooks and eyes and snap fasteners. You don’t have these special touches in ready-to-wear. I collect haute couture because to me it’s a work of art. Some people collect paintings or sculptures…I collect fashion. Also, my country, Poland, did not have a possibility to have couture pieces because of its post-war history.” For many, nothing will replace the magic of putting on a couture piece. “Sometimes you’ll put on these things and they can be slightly avant garde in nature and you almost need a scientific degree to get it on,” adds Krasicki.
Obviously, even beyond the cost barrier, these are garments that require special care. Vanyo stores all of hers in a climate-controlled specialty location and treads carefully in her most delicate pieces.
Still, at the end of the day, most people are buying this fashion as art and as a means to preserve the craft. “We know the seamstresses and we have the same three seamstresses wherever we are in the world,” says Meader. “This is their life’s work.” Likewise, others see their purchases as future museum pieces. “There’s definitely certain pieces I have that I would love to see in a museum, and I think that’s part of the reason why I do it, because if you don’t support these kinds of things, they’re not going to be around anymore,” says Krasicki.
Many designers will tell you they don’t consider fashion art, but when it comes to couture, it’s an entirely different blank canvas.