frfashion1-7, Exercise 1: Why keep a loss-making couture collection

Model answer (check the details):

A house may keep couture even if it loses money because it works as the brand's research, advertising and craft base. The couture shows and the press coverage give the name prestige and attention, and that makes customers willing to pay high prices for much cheaper products such as handbags, scarves, perfume and ready-to-wear, which provide most of the income. The ateliers also preserve skills (embroidery, tailoring, feather-work) that the house uses in other lines and that would be very hard to rebuild once lost. Couture clients, though few, are a visible group of wealthy customers and celebrities that the house wants to be associated with.

In short, couture is treated as a marketing and heritage cost paid for by the profitable parts of the business (check).

Care: the claim that couture "loses money" is an estimate, since houses rarely publish figures for the couture line alone. Say so when quoting it.