Paris designers raise price of haute couture

Press, 4 February 1982, Page 12

Paris designers raise price of haute couture

Both hemlines and prices soared this week as top French designers presented their couture collections for the' spring and summer season.

Most collections featured mini-length skirts in contrast to the longer hemlines of the last few seasons. Prices rose to record levels as most major designers spent between $350,000 and $700,000 on their extravaganzas. But despite the fact that clients can now expect to pay between $4OOO and $5OOO for an evening gown, several top couture houses reported that sales have surpassed their expectations. The number of wealthy international clients who dress in the haute couture may have dwindled from 4000 to about 400 in the past few years but Emanuel Ungaro actually had to refuse several orders because his workrooms were fully booked with 250 custommade models at an average price of $4OOO each.

Madam Yves Lanvin, owner of the Lanvin firm, says she was pleasantly surprised when couture orders for the winter season were 30 per cent more than the previous year.

Couture houses, however, are cutting basic costs wherever they can. Permanent “house" mannequins have been replaced by a freelance team of top ’international roving models. Video tapes of each presentation taken during the first showing are shown in each house instead of the traditional daily live show.

All major designers now choose to show in hotel ballrooms or museums which can accommodate up to 600 journalists and professional buyers, rather than in their own smaller salons. Paris couturiers are also travelling more with special shows staged in various fashionable resorts such as Monte Carlo and Saint Moritz where the socialites congregate, rather than sitting back in their own salons and

From

Peggy Massin

NZPA-Reuter, Paris

waiting for the clients to come to them.

Another explanation for such good business during the past season is the favourable rate of exchange for women paying in foreign currencies.

The over-all mood of the new collections is fanciful and frequently highly theatrical.

Restrained daytime fashions are generally eclipsed by exotic costume looks and luxurious evening wear.

Today, the average weathly private client lends to purchase good ready-made clothes for streetwear and saves her money to splurge on lavish formal wardrobes. The Paris designers are playing up this trend to the hilt with glitter and glamour as the keynotes of the coming season. Yves Saint Laurent climaxed the week's showings with a superb presentation of 130 models to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his own couture house.

He also rented the entire Lido nightclub on the Champs Elysees to stage a celebration party for 1000 people, including all the sales staff and couture workers from his couture house. Saint Laurent heralds this anniversary with a parade of his classic hits over the years, all refined, updated and totally contemporary looks such as the mantailored trouser suits with cropped boleros or mess jackets cut down into deep points in front and the race track "tout” suits in striped menswear fabrics.

The “white collar” girls are also back in black and navy blue tube silhouettes set off with pretty white collars and cuffs.

There are also elaborate Indian inspired cocktail ensembles in glittering bro-

cades complete with pleated turbans. Jewelled embroideries plus the ethereal “winged victory" chiffon gowns or slinky satin sheaths with asymetrical drapery are reminiscent of pre-war Hollywood sirens. Along with many other designers. Saint Laurent also goes ultra-romantic in formal wear which constitutes two-thirds of his collection. Taffeta ball gowns with enormous billowing skirts pay homage to the Princess of Wales, who also inspired part of the Christian Dior. collection and all of Jean Louis Scherrer’s show. Famous portraits by Gainsborough and Renoir come to life in Scherrer's garden party dresses trimmed with lace, frills and flounces worn with flowerladen hats, long, curly ringlets, taffeta parasols or long capes with ruched hoods. Patchwork prints and mixed patterns are a recurring theme everywhere. Emanuel Ungaro combines up to four or five different patterns in his stylised pageboy and dancing doll silhouettes often recalling- the colourful stage costumes from the comedie de I’arte. Hemlines are unanimously short for daytime. Evening gowns go to all lenths from the short disco sheaths and flamenco gowns with ruffled tiered skirts to floating chiffons with layered panels cut in handkerchief points. Black and white colour combinations are a veritable signature in every house, especially the positive-negative prints with geometric patchwork patterns. These bold dramatic designs call for a very slim figure, and practically everyone will have to go on a diet to wear the wide waistcinching corselet, belts which are prevalent everywhere. All in all. it looks like another great season for the Paris couture and all one really needs to look glamorous in one guise or another are good legs — and plenty of money.