“Haute couture is high-end fashion that is constructed by hand from start to finish, made from high-quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable of sewers” – sometimes. Sometimes it’s just made of paper and disposable.
I never understood Haute couture until reading the book “50 dresses that changed the world”, much as I didn’t understand modern art until I visited a Guggenheim exhibition of modern art in Canberra.
I still don’t understand Haute couture very well, but let’s start with modern art. Before the Canberra exhibition I had no liking for Picasso, his paintings of women look like he’s become exceedingly angry because his models won’t stand still, and also look as though they’ve been dashed off in a couple of minutes. Now I understand that modern art largely IS Picasso (one of his claims) because he reinvented himself so many times to stay ahead of the pack.
The Canberra exhibition was in date order, essential for an introduction to modern art. It started with one impressionist painting (by Matisse or Monet), then a Chagall dream, then an early Picasso which is an accurate picture of a town, then a classic Picasso cubist painting of two prostitutes. I could see that the cubist lines had their origin in the buildings and bricks of the town, the origin of cubism. The exhibition then went on with Leger, Braque for cubism, then onto abstract art with Kandinsky, Mondrian, Albers, Klee and others, leading up to Pollack.
Thus I was able to see that the common factor for “fine art” is “balance”, a colour balance in all directions that pleases the eye. I was also able to see how modern art progressed by discarding in turn assumptions made by previous artists. Discarding reality, discarding feminine curves, discarding describable shapes, discarding all geometry, discarding all texture, discarding modernity (in primitivism). One of my favourite paintings in the exhibition, by a painter whose name I can’t remember, was all texture, nothing else.
“50 dresses that changed the world” is also in date order. Before reading it, I expected it to contain a transition away from bustles, corsets, multiple layers of fabric to single layer loose fitting garments. It didn’t, because that had all happened before the first dress in the book, dated 1915.
Of haute couture, I was only aware that many highly rated dresses would never be worn in a thousand years, and many others are downright ugly, so didn’t understand haute couture at all. What I found in the book was that every highly rated dress had one of the four characteristics: shock value, beauty, popularity or “worn by royalty” and most of them had two. Together with craftsmanship, that is the factor that most defines “haute couture”.
Before reading the book I had expected to find a sharp transition from modernism (“form fits function” and use of modern materials) to postmodernism (cherry picking the best from the past). There was nothing even remotely like a transition from modern to postmodern in the book. Each dress was an amalgum of the modern and the past in different ways, tending sometimes towards modern and sometimes towards the past, but with no distinction in date of manufacture between the two.
The startling and by far the sharpest and most unexpected trend in the book is the treatment of the waist. Before 1964, every haute couture dress in the book had a waist, either a normal waist or a high “empire” waist. After 1964, no haute couture dress in the book had a waist, apart from a single exception in 2005. Another trend is the deep Vee front (no bra) which first appeared in 1968 (as an option) and continues to appear to the present day. Although monochrome dresses are always present, multi-coloured dresses have made increasingly deep inroads in haut couture since first revealed in 1964. Another trend is the loss of dresses designed for dancing, the last being in 1971 or in 1974.
From a feminist point of view, about half of the best designers of haute couture are women. ‘Power dressing’ of women is present throughout the whole hundred years.
- 1915 Fortuny, Delphos pleated dress
Fine vetically pleated silk, a process that nobody since has been able to duplicate. Superbly easy to put on. Beautiful only on a tall thin model. Finely textured B/W. - 1926 Chanel, Flapper dress
Low neckline, knee length, long sleeves, monochrome. Power dressing for dancers. - 1931 Vionnet, Goddess dress
Freely flowing bias cut sleeveless monochrome with yards of material. Would not be out of place on a Roman statue. - 1937 Mainbocher, Wallis Simpson’s wedding dress
- 1947 Dior, The New Look
Recovery of opulence after WWII, soft shoulders, wasp waist and indulgent volume in monochrome - 1947 Schiaparelli, Shocking-Pink dress
Pioneered the use of the zip, shoulder pad, synthetic fabric, garish monochrome. Old use of flower embroidery. - 1953 Hartnell, Elizabeth II’s coronation
White satin, heavily embroidered with silver & gold thread. Worn with ermine and curtain-tie-like gold shoulder tassels. - 1955 Travilla, “The seven year itch”
Halter neck. Shocking for being blown provocatively. - late 1950s Chanel suit
Knee length skirt and shoulder jacket. Like menswear but feminised by trim, buttons, fabric and cut. Power dressing for business. - 1961 de Gevinchy, Little black dress
Timeless. The 1961 version worn by Hepburn is knee length, with frilly hem and low cut back. - c 1961 Cassini, Jackie Kennedy look
- 1964 Courreges, Moon girl collection
The first milticoloured dress in the book. The collection contains the first without a waist. Embraces synthetic plastics including polyurethane. Does not accentuate feminine curves. Below the knee. The most modernist dress in this book. - 1965 St Laurent, Mondrian dress
A rectangle, in vibrant colour blocks, sleeveless below the knee. - 1965 Quant. Mini
The simplicity made it ideal for not only mass production but running up at home. Initially with white hem on strong colour. - 1965 Varon. Diana Rigg’s dress in The Avengers
Power dressing in a miniskirt and jacket. - 1966 Laura Ashley. Cotton maxi
Anti-modern, nostalgic multicolour fine textured print. - 1966 Rabonne. Metal disc dress
Like chain mail. Figure hugging when still, swirls out when dancing. - 1968 St Laurent. Safari dress
Woman as hunter in khaki shirt. Minidress that can be unlaced at front right down to the waist. Long stockings recommended. - 1968 Scott Paper Company
Printed paper, disposable. - 1968 Muir, Midi
Elegant, restrained, lightly embroidered, Edwardian - 1970 Clark & Birtwell, Dress and Coat
Colour and pattern. Bold colours in geometrised floral. - 1970 Gemreich. Topless
Proof that fashion still had the power to shock - 1971 Gibb. Twiggy’s outfit for the LA premierre of “The Boyfriend”
Flowers, checkerboard, pleats, long sleeves. A “kaleidoscope”. - 1973 von Furstenberg. The wrap
Simplicity itself. Like a dressing gown but sexy with b/w geometric patterns. The ultimate “go anywhere” dress. - 1974 Missoni. The mid-length knitted stripy
Possibly the first haut couture dress to use knitted fabric. Multicoloured straight and zig-zag stripes. - 1977 Halston. Halterneck dress
Backless and deep Vee in the front. Otherwise unexceptional, some look like the 1915 Delphos dress. - 1977 Takada. Kenzo shirt dress
Looks like an oversized mens shirt. Monochrome. Mini like the 1968 safari dress, but baggier. - 1979 Rhodes. Painted chiffon
Seethrough and deep Vee front. - 1981 Emanuel. Diana’s wedding dress
Yuk. The worst of nostagia. Where a lace tablecloth meets a crumpled linen bed sheet over hundreds of metres of petticoat netting. - 1981 Kawakubo. Comme des garcons dress
“Distressed designs in every sense of the word”. Emo chic. - 1984 Sarne. Ghost dress
Unnoticed at the time but extremely influential. Shunk pastel rayon material looking like vintage crepe. - 1985 Westwood. Mini-crini
The worst of post-modernism. The crinoline tutu looks both childlike and sexually predatory. - 1985 Miller. Krystyle Carrington’s dress
Pencil skirt, padded shoulders and deep Vee in white. So strongly textured that it almost looks like lace. - 1988 Mackie, Cher’s Moonstruck Oscar’s dress
Broke two taboos at once. Older model and spiderweb beaded very see-through. Halter neck, full length. - 1989 Leger, Bandage dress
“Where corsetry meets Egyptology” Evolved into a much nicer coloured version in 2007-8. - 1990 Klein, Shift dress
Now known for mass-produced rubbish, the original Calvin Klein is a forgotten genius. Power dress with off-the-shoulder minimal fabric. Made to be worn without any make-up or adornment. - 1993 Chalayan. Buried dress
Buried garments in clay and let them decompose. Broke the boundary between art and clothing. - 1993 Miyake. Pleats please
Wide horizontal pleats accentuated by bold colours. Like a Chinese lantern with a collar. - 1994 Stambolian. Black pleated chiffon
Quickly dubbed the “revenge dress”. - 1994 Versache. Safety-pin dress
Deep Vee, in black. Oversized golden safety pins attach the front to the back. - 1997 Macdonald. Mermaid dress
White lace long dress with long sleeves. - 1997 Williamson. Electric angels collection
Vibrant colour, simple, with cardigan. Chic and informal at the same time. - 2000 Versache. Green silk bamboo-print dress
A silk wrap with beautiful print left open from head to toe in front, fastened only with a single jewelled clasp. Revealing and relaxed at the same time. - 2001 McQueen. Samurai dress
Long, high-neck, short sleeves. Covered in umbrella-like rosettes. - 2001 Valentino. Julia Roberts’s Oscars dress
Caused a sensation because it was made 19 years earlier. Broke the convention by showing that the wearer can be as important as the dress. - 2004 Smith. Floral-print tea dress.
Another postmodern dress. Informal but made with good fabrics. Pleated edges give it a ragged look. What a wealthy zombie might wear. - 2005 Lanvin brand. Kingfisher-blue silk faille balloon dress
Where boiler suit meets nursery. Above the knee. - 2005 Mouret. Galaxy dress.
Looks 1900 vintage, but made without a pattern. Fabrics are simply draped around the models and held with pins or studs. Power dressing. - 2007 Chalayan. LED dress.
A simple shift-like shapeless white dress, lit by 15,600 flickering hidden LED lights.
Eighteen of these are illustrated below.
In summary, all the way through there’s a mix of the old and the new.
There are a few glaring omissions. With only one exception in each case we have:
. no dresses with a print other than of flowers or rectangles.
. no dresses using knitted fabric
. no dresses using mixed pastel colours
. no dresses using cheap fabric
