Learning to understand fashion: who creates trends and what clothing collections are there?

2023 Author: Avery Leman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 13:34

You follow the endless updating of the collections of fashion houses and do not have time to figure out when the Resort, Pre-Fall, and when the couture collection comes out? Blogger Margarita Maslova will try to sort everything out on the shelves and along the way explain what is the difference between a trend, a tendency and who in general comes up with all this.

Margarita Maslova Blogger

My maiden memory completely refuses to sort through the names of fashion houses' collections. Of course, I know everything, but when I am asked to explain in words what is the essence of the terms "Haute Couture", "Cruise" or "Pre-fall", my thoughts cannot be transformed into articulate speech. So it's probably time to defragment the data in your head.

About trends and tendencies

I want to start by answering the question that many people ask: who comes up with trends? Where do they come from? Who dictates to us what we should wear this season? Before giving answers, I propose to figure out what is the difference between a trend and a trend, and it is, despite the fact that most people combine these concepts into one.

• The trend is "squeak of fashion", a general fashion direction, which is a novelty and a find of this season. First, a trend appears, then it is "tested" according to the criteria of convenience and wearability, if necessary, it is transformed and develops into a trend.
• Trend - the general direction of the season, which can be traced in the collections of different designers over several seasons.
• What was once a trend doesn't necessarily become a trend.
• If a trend persists for a long period of time (more than four seasons), it develops into a classic.

In the past, trends originated in the free-of-the-frame Haute Couture collections, which for a long time were more art than clothing. Today this function of couture is almost forgotten, and it is mainly the Ready-to-Wear lines that are responsible for it. Then the trend is adapted for the mass consumer, and the clothes go on sale in the mass market, where they will be presented in a large circulation and with a wide range of sizes.

Fashion mechanisms

It may seem to many that the designers are sitting in their huge workshops and "from the bulldozer" draw the fruits of their boundless imagination, combine them with one common theme, and their apprentices, in turn, sew the resulting collections one after another, simply timing them for the coming seasons. But in reality this is not entirely true. Even these creative people with an unlimited flow of ideas have a clear plan that they must adhere to on a consistent basis. All these terrible and, at first glance, incomprehensible to the ear "bourgeois" names are just some kind of framework, a schedule that allows the world to see the creations of the fashion industry just in time.

Haute couture

Haute Couture refers to the creation of high-end clothing - usually translated as “haute couture”. The center of haute couture is still Paris, where the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture is located - here, by the way, they only deal with women's "Haute Couture", for menswear and Ready-to-Wear creators there are two other syndicate).

To obtain the status of a Haute Couture house, you need to meet a number of requirements. First of all, all production and central stores of the House must be located in Paris and fall under the jurisdiction of the French Department of Industry. Secondly, it is necessary to engage in the manufacture of clothes for individual orders - while using at least 70% of manual labor.

The number of haute couture houses varies, but always remains at about 20. The Haute Couture Syndicate includes brands such as Chanel, Christian Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Elie Saab, Giorgio Armani, Giambattista Valli, Valentino, Versace.

Clothing "haute couture" differs in that it is almost completely sewn by hand and in a single copy. Each model takes approximately 100 to 400 hours of work to manufacture. The products chosen for the show are just samples, and a new product is sewn for the client, ideally suited to his figure. Therefore, the price of a haute couture dress is high - from 26 thousand to 100 thousand dollars, a suit - from 16 thousand dollars, and an evening dress - from 60 thousand dollars (however, these prices are very conditional and can vary indefinitely) … The Haute Couture collections are shown twice a year during Paris haute couture weeks - usually just before the season.

Pret-a-Porter or Ready-to-Wear

For the Pret-a-Porter collection (aka Ready-to-Wear), we are tracking the main trends of the season. These garments are produced in larger quantities for mass sale in boutiques of fashion houses and in multi-brand stores. The expensive Haute Couture line sometimes maintains the name and reputation of the fashion house, while the main profit comes from the Pret-a-Porter line. These clothes are sewn according to standard size lines, but often they are in no way inferior in quality and complexity of execution to couture products - it all depends on the complexity of the product.

Also, the collections are divided by seasons:

« SS », « spring-summer" - spring Summer.

« FW », « fall-winter", And sometimes just" Fall" - autumn winter.

Seasonal collections are shown at fashion weeks in Milan, Paris, London, New York, Berlin and other world fashion capitals.

Capsule collection

A capsule collection is a small collection of a brand, sometimes in collaboration with a celebrity or guest designer, sometimes just for a specific occasion (or even without). Often such collections are timed to coincide with the anniversary or significant event of the fashion house. But if it is still a collaboration between two brands or a brand and a designer, then the collection is called a collaboration (callobaration).

Pre-collection

Pre-collections (Pre-fall - pre-autumn, Pre-spring - pre-spring) are an easy way to "look" into those seasons that are not coming soon. For example, Pre-fall usually goes on sale in June, and outlines the main trends of the next season even earlier, when it appears in the brand's catalogs (such collections do not go to the catwalk).

Cruise or Resort

The so-called "cruise" is an off-season collection that is released in May-July and is intended for fashionistas who leave for warm countries in winter, but do not want to wear things from past collections. There are much fewer models in them than in the main collections, and they are mostly summer: dresses and suits made of thin light fabrics, swimwear, as well as evening and cocktail dresses. However, now everything has changed, and designers often offer very warm and unexpectedly strict, almost business-like “cruise” collections.