What Is French Fashion?

French Fashion & Haute Couture

Course 1 · Chapter 1 · What Is French Fashion? Scope & Sources

Paris has called itself the capital of fashion for more than three centuries, and a large part of the world has agreed. French fashion is a set of craft workshops, a legal label, a calendar of shows, a global luxury industry and a national self-image. This first chapter explains what the main terms mean, how the couture houses differ from ready-to-wear, the vocabulary needed to follow the story, why the course treats fashion as culture and not only as clothing, and where to find reliable sources. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

French Fashion in Outline

Haute couture

"High sewing" is a protected term in French law, not just a description. To use it, a house must meet conditions set by the ministry of industry and judged by a committee: made-to-measure clothes for private clients, a workshop in Paris with a minimum number of skilled staff, and collections shown twice a year (check the current rules). Very few houses qualify, and the official list changes from year to year (check).

Ready-to-wear

Prêt-à-porter means clothes made in standard sizes and sold in shops. The big names sell both: a house may show a few couture collections a year for prestige and earn most of its money from ready-to-wear, accessories, perfume and cosmetics (check). Chapter 6 explains how this shift began in the 1960s.

The institutions

The trade body for the couture houses was founded in the 19th century as the Chambre syndicale, and today's federation (the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode) organises the Paris shows and the calendar (check). Paris is one of the "big four" fashion weeks, with New York, London and Milan.

More than clothes French fashion is unusual because the state, the trade and the press have all treated it as a national asset. Louis XIV's minister Colbert backed the luxury trades in the 17th century, the state has protected the couture label since the 1940s, and the Paris shows are covered by the national press as news (check). That is why this course treats it as a part of French culture, with its own history, myths and language.

Couture and Ready-to-Wear

Point (check each)	Haute couture	Ready-to-wear
Made for	One client, with fittings in the house	Many customers, in standard sizes
Made where	In the house's own Paris workshops (ateliers)	In factories, in France or abroad
Shown	In couture weeks, twice a year	In the fashion weeks, twice a year
Cost	Very high; each piece may take hundreds of hours	Much lower, but still luxury at the top end
Role for the house	Prestige, craft and publicity	Most of the sales, with accessories and perfume

The Language of French Fashion

Term (check each)	Meaning
Maison	"House": a fashion house, named for its founder, such as Chanel or Dior.
Couturier / couturière	A male or female dressmaker who designs and runs a couture house.
Atelier	A workshop. A house has separate ateliers for dresses (flou) and for tailoring (tailleur).
Première	The head of an atelier, who turns the designer's sketch into a garment.
Petite main	"Little hand": a skilled seamstress or finisher, usually unnamed in the history.
Toile	A trial garment in plain cotton, used to test the cut before the real fabric is cut.
Défilé	A fashion show, from the word for a procession.
Mannequin	A model, from the older word for a dummy.
Collection	The set of designs a house shows each season.
Griffe	The label of a designer, literally a "claw" or signature mark.

Why a Culture Course?

It is a way into French history. The court, the silk trade of Lyon, the Revolution and the Occupation all shaped the clothes (Chapters 2 to 5).
It is a way into French society. Fashion shows class, gender, work and the roles of women, and the history of couture is also a history of the unnamed workers (Chapter 9).
It is a mirror of business. The modern luxury groups are among the largest companies in France (Chapter 7).
It has produced myths. "Paris is the capital of fashion" and "Chanel freed women" are claims to test (Chapter 10).

Scope of the Course

Part (check)	Chapters	Topics
Beginnings	2, 3	The court, silk and Worth; the Belle Époque and Poiret
The great designers	4, 5	Chanel, Vionnet, Schiaparelli; Dior and postwar couture
Change	6	The 1960s revolt and ready-to-wear
The industry	7, 8	The luxury groups; the calendar and the media
Craft and method	9, 10	Craft, labour and ethics; testing the legend

The course is about fashion as a culture and a story. It is not a shopping guide, a style guide or a dressmaking course. It keeps designers' names and dates to those needed for the story (all flagged "check"), and it deals with labour, the Occupation and the industry's disputes factually and respectfully.

Myths to Test

Common claim	The question a careful reader asks (check each)
Paris is the capital of fashion.	By what measure, and compared with Milan, London and New York? (Chapters 7, 8 and 10)
Haute couture is a dying art.	What do the number of houses, clients and the share of sales show? (Chapters 5, 7 and 9)
Chanel freed women from the corset.	Which designers moved first, and what did "freed" mean? (Chapters 3 and 4)
The New Look brought glamour back after the war.	Who liked it, who criticised it, and why? (Chapter 5)
French women are effortlessly chic.	Who sells this image, and what does it leave out? (Chapters 8 and 10)
The designer is a lone genius.	What do the ateliers and the business teams contribute? (Chapters 7 and 9)

Sources to Use

Museums. The Palais Galliera, the city of Paris's fashion museum, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs hold large dress collections, and several houses run their own museums and archives (check which are open).
Magazines and archives. The French national library's Gallica site has digitised fashion journals such as the 19th-century Journal des Dames et des Modes (check what is online), and Vogue Paris and other magazines are essential for the 20th century.
The trade. The federation's website carries the calendar and member lists, and each house's website tells its history from its own point of view (check).
Books and essays. Histories in French and English by museum curators and historians of dress, and the memoirs of designers, which need to be read as interested accounts (check which are in print).
Film and television. Documentaries on the houses, and films such as those in French Film & Television, which often use fashion as a symbol of Paris.

A British comparison The British role is larger than it looks. The founder of haute couture in Paris, Charles Frederick Worth, was an Englishman (Chapter 2, check), and British designers have headed French houses since the 1990s (Chapter 7). At home, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has one of the largest dress collections in the world, and Scotland has its own fashion tradition in tweed, cashmere and knitwear, with Edinburgh's department stores as part of the story (check). An Edinburgh reader should keep these comparisons in mind: French fashion has often borrowed British fabrics and tailoring (Chapter 4, check).

Check the details The rules for the couture label, the list of official members and the structure of the luxury groups change often. The figures and dates here are from memory and should be checked against the federation, the ministry and a reliable reference. Stories about famous designers are often retold in a polished form, so check the dates and names of any anecdote before you rely on it.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain the difference between haute couture and ready-to-wear to a friend who has never followed fashion, and say why a house still bothers with couture.

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Describe an imaginary fitting in two paragraphs using at least six terms from the vocabulary table.

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Pick two claims from the "Myths to Test" table and say what evidence you would look for and where you would find it.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

Couture: a protected label for made-to-measure clothes from Paris workshops
Ready-to-wear: prêt-à-porter, standard sizes, most of the sales
Words: maison, atelier, toile, première, petite main, défilé
Method: describe the story, check the figures, test the claims