The fall couture shows in Paris, which ended Thursday, were held earlier than the usual July dates to avoid clashing with preparations for the Olympic Games, but the season still offered some Parisian high jewelry houses a chance to shine brightly. Their presentations capped a series of glamorous events around Europe, as several houses continued…
The question of inspiration has always been a little cringey when it comes to fashion: Designers offering up “mood board” collages backstage to turn even the genesis of their collections into content and connect them to some deeper meaning that can often seem either ridiculously convoluted or drippingly banal. Hence Miranda Priestley’s famous “Florals? For…
The trappings of dressmaking — including thimbles, thread, scissors and measuring tapes — feature in a new 20-piece Couture O’Clock watch collection by Chanel, inspired by the house’s couture workshops on Rue Cambon in Paris. Arnaud Chastaingt, director of Chanel’s Watchmaking Creation Studio, wrote in an email that he had chosen to focus on the…
Boucheron’s Histoire de Style high jewelry collection, presented every January, is inspired by pieces in the house’s archives. But this year, for its fourth iteration, it also highlighted a little-known bit of history: the house’s founder, Frédéric Boucheron, was the son of a textile merchant who specialized in silks and lace. “When I looked at…
As the ultimate expressions of French savoir-faire and creativity, couture and high jewelry go hand in hand. More than a decade ago, high jewelry even helped save Couture Week. The fashion industry had been wondering whether couture could survive, given how few houses were staging runway shows. Then, in 2010, many of the most prominent…
The night of the wolf moon — the first full moon of the new year — also happened to be the last night of the couture, when John Galliano recreated a decaying Paris nightclub in the vaulted caverns beneath Paris’s Pont Alexandre III bridge across the Seine. Crepe paper streamers the color of Madeira wine…
Haute couture is a celebration of artisanship — and one-upmanship — as the world’s top fashion houses gather in Paris to compete with one another and show off new designs. So, too, with the celebrities and socialites on the front row, who also have something to sell — movies, music, reality television, cosmetics. The season…
The fact that the big Oscar nominations reveal fell right in the middle of the Paris couture shows was a coincidence, but a fortuitous one. After all, ever since the end of the actors’ strike, the red carpet has been a veritable explosion of pent-up fashion fantasy. What better place to shop for that than…
It is possible that the most dazzling couture show in Paris this week is not actually taking place on a runway at all, but in an entirely different sort of setting. Possible that said couture show is not an invitation-only affair with gold ballroom chairs and the latest celebrity du jour, but rather one open…
