A Day in the Life of a Haute Couture Designer
Remember that movie Groundhog Day? Starring Bill Murray as a reporter covering the February 2nd events of a small town groundhog in Pennsylvania, he begins waking up living the same day over and over again. As a haute couture designer, your days will be anything but typical.
As with most careers in fashion, the mantra seems to be to go in early and leave late. Your day will be packed with appointments. These appointments allow the client and designer alike to gauge the progress of a design from simply talking about what is required to the completion of a garment.
The development of a couture garment is rather labor intensive. To produce a piece of work that is not only one-of-a-kind but has superior quality and deserves the price tag and label of haute couture requires long days and longer nights. And therein lays many of a haute couture designer’s conflict: balancing their time.
Most designers will begin their days with a final fitting. It’s at this client meeting that ultimate decisions are made regarding the piece being constructed. Measurements are taken and hemlines are established to perfect the fit to the satisfaction of all involved.
The next appointment might be to discuss a series of sketches displaying a common theme, the result of a prior conversation. Accompanying each sketch would be fabric swatches so that the drawings come alive in the same way for each individual. If a sketch is chosen, the client’s measurements are taken, a process that lasts 20 minutes. You might wonder how it could take so long to simply wrap a tape measure around a person’s body, but to create a one-of-a-kind garment with the flawless fit that haute couture is famous for, every single body part is measured. From the arm length to the inseam, every number counts. Measurements provide the designer with a visual of the human form the garment is being produced for.
Before leaving an appointment, the client is given information on fabric and labor costs, the length of time to create the item as well as the approximate number of fittings they will need to agree to. The next appointment, made for one week later, will be used to fit the form, a muslin mock-up of their measurements. The time between appointments is necessary to create the pattern, and cut and stitch the form.
Haute couture is about perfection. It’s about the perfect garment with the perfect fit and the perfect amount of creativity. Perfection is expected from a haute couture designer. It’s mandatory, a pre-requisite. 200 hours may well be spent on one, single item depending on the inner and outer constructs and adornment requested. Quality of this magnitude demands energy and attention to the minutest of details.
