Haute Couture

During our World wide Fashion team meeting, my collegue based in Paris came in to do a presentation on Brands. She explained how difficult it is for a true luxury brand to balance between (1) maintaining the brand's image and heritage, and (2) renewing itself to evolve with modern times so it can always be fresh and set the trend. A brand is always constantly looking for ways to connect to the customers with their own uniqueness which won the hearts and following of these customers in the first place.

She did a case study on Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton. It was a great presentation and intrigued me to further research on what these brands are all about. I ran across a BBC documentary on the internet named "The Secret World of Haute Couture." Haute Couture, according to Wikipedia, is a French for "high sewing" or "high dressmaking," and refers to the creative of exclusive custom-fitted fashions. Apparently, there is a group of very very rich women who would make it a seasonal event to attend all the fashion shows by the most famous designers and then purchase that special piece. It will be only one produced in the world, custom-fitted to the buyer, of course. A blouse will normally costs $10,000 and a dress can $300,000 or upwards to $1 Million. Now, this is CRAZY!! Anyways, the BBC documentary is really interesting and worth a view if you have time.