The craft that survives without apologizing.
The word "couture" comes from the French couture - sewing, stitching. The right to call your clothes couture isn't a marketing choice. It's a legal status granted by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode - a private Paris organization that writes the city's official fashion calendar. The conditions are narrow: a workshop in Paris itself, at least fifteen seamstresses on permanent staff, a collection of at least fifty new designs, shown twice a year. No factory. No standard size. Every dress is cut directly on the client's body, with several live fittings.
Chanel, a French house founded by Coco Chanel, is today owned by the Wertheimer family, discreet billionaires. Dior, the house of Christian Dior, is owned by LVMH. Neither name is ever missing from the calendar. Balenciaga, a Spanish house today part of the Kering conglomerate (also the owner of Gucci), returned to couture after a long break. Its then creative director Demna sewed a collection directly on the bodies of friends and staff, with no models on the runway.
Right now, new names have stepped to the top of two of the houses. Matthieu Blazy joined Chanel, a Belgian designer who came from the Italian luxury brand Bottega Veneta. Jonathan Anderson took over at Dior, an Irish designer known for his own brand JW Anderson and for running the Spanish house Loewe. Both are debuting with couture collections. The fashion press follows the change as closely as a coaching change at a big football club.
Economically, couture doesn't add up. The clients are a handful of women worldwide. The clothes aren't mass-produced - each one takes weeks of hand labor from embroiderers and cutters that no photo ever shows. The houses keep it running at a loss on purpose, because couture sells everything else under the same logo, from perfume to lipstick, with the proof that the brand can make something by hand, slowly, to perfection.
What actually works
Do you know how rarely a client pays for time, not the result? I work with a team, deadlines, budgets - and when something takes too long, that's a problem, not an advantage. In couture it's the opposite. The slower, the more expensive, and nobody apologizes for it. I watch it with a bit of envy. Not because I want to sew dresses, but because I want at least one project in my life where slow is the point, not the obstacle.
The difference with everything else in this series is right here. AI speeds up almost everything it touches - from writing to images. Couture is the counter-example. Proof that somewhere, people still pay for it NOT to be fast. I don't know how long this little island will hold out. But for now, it's the one place that doesn't apologize to the machine.