The Relationship Between Haute Couture and Society, Essay Example

Haute Couture is a French phrase that means “high dress making” or “high sewing”. This means the creation or designing of exclusive clothing that is custom-fitted. As reported by Aspelund, Haute Couture is more often than not of high quality and it is made when a customer has put an order for it to be made (pg 4). It is made from very expensive fabric which is often sewn with tremendous attention to client’s detail and finished at the right time. The Haute Couture is time-consuming and requires techniques that are hand-executed. Haute Couture has made a lot of people in the society worship the size two-figure which is the society’s standard figure for a woman who wants a well fitting gown or outfit. People today focus so much on the glamorous life of wearing expensive clothes and belonging to a certain class when wearing the Haute Couture. The society has changed drastically by the emergence of fashion houses that creates clothing for the rich and the famous people in the society on the order of the client. Many people today would like to be associated with the greatest fashion designers in the whole world because they create individual designs for each of their clients. Aspelund discovered that Haute Couture has made a lot of people in the society to become collectors of various designs in the fashion houses at very expensive costs because people nowadays value their physical appearance than anything else (9). The Haute Couture has also made the society be divided into classes; those of the rich who can afford the Haute Couture and the poor who cannot afford the designs.

Haute Couture Is Not Good For the Society

Haute Couture is not good for the society because as much as a designer would like to improve in making profits; one cannot achieve one’s goals because the designs take almost one to two months. During this time the designer would have made at least ten more designs that are perfect according to a designer’s expertise. The designer does not make a lot of money as compared to the costs incurred when making the clothes for their clients because many people have specific designs that need a lot of labor and also expensive material. Aspelund also discovered that people in the society have lost focus on their lives and now focus all their attention on the clothing of the rich and the famous (12). People develop personality disorders because they cannot fit in the lives of the wealthy. Haute Couture has made a lot of teenagers drop out of school so as to be actors and musicians. Some of these school drop outs do not achieve their set goals in dressing up in very expensive designs and being associated with very prominent designers.

Effects Of Haute Couture in the Society

When a person can not fit in the standard set domains of the society of having expensive custom made clothing, a skinny figure and also being associated with a certain fashion designer, the chances of a normal contemporary woman having a mental breakdown are very high. Haute-Couture an online journal suggests that, Haute Couture is destroying the fashion designers’ own innovative nature because when a person makes an order on how the clothes should be designed; although the designer has a great idea he cannot use it because the interests of the clients are put first before those of the designers (para 7). The Haute Couture has also led teenagers who cannot achieve the societal domains of being perfect to end up in the streets selling drugs or involved in prostitution so as to get the money to be acquire Haute couture.

In simple words, the Haute has mostly favored the rich and the famous while the other classes are left behind questioning the relevance to their existence. This is because the society has placed Haute Couture in such a high place that when a person has a designer gown then that person has to be very rich to have bought the custom-fitting gown and still have some money to buy another dress which will be worn after a year or two.

Works Cited

“Haute-Couture.” Fall Winter 2008/2009 Definitive schedule. 6^th Jan. 2008. 27th June 2008.  <http://www.modeaparis.com/va/collections/2008hahc/index.html>

Aspelund Karl.  A Hundred Years of Haute Couture by Six Designers. New York: Fairchild Books, 2009.