Debating the Role of Couture During a Global Recession
So what is the role of couture fashion in a global economic downturn? Some argue that it has no place in today's society. But haute couture shows are the way that design houses make a name for themselves. The ready to wear collections are closer to what really ends up in stores.
"It is a powerful tool to educate the customer about our brand," stressed Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion at Chanel, which will parade Karl Lagerfeld's latest collection to about 900 guests under the soaring glass roof of the Grand Palais at sundown Tuesday. "In couture, the objective is to be perfect. There's no compromise on excellence."
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Pavlovsky called 2008 a "record year" for Chanel's couture business, with a 10 percent sales uptick over the previous year. Sales for the white-themed summer 2009 collection slipped about 15 percent, reflecting recessionary times, but hardly prompting alarm.
"The number of potential customers is still the same: The number of customers who are ordering is less," is how Pavlovsky put it. Indeed, while fewer American clients opened their checkbooks last season, Chanel won a handful of orders from important new ones from the Middle East, Russia, Greece and China.
Noted Toledano: "There are more and more millionaires in China — more than in France."
What unites clients is a desire "to feel very special with the brand, and to be unique in their outfit," Pavlovsky said. "It's working. There will continue to be fans of couture."
Indeed, even at Lacroix, where employees are fretting that a court-appointed administrator could liquidate the 22-year-old couture house, or reduce the firm to a licensing operation, there is an order backlog.
It's such a shame that the house of Lacroix is in receivership.
Christian Lacroix himself is as brilliant as ever. But when he sold his company, he lost control of the business end of things. As for haute couture, it has been declared dead many times and it's still here.
