Chanel S/S '10 couture

It’s the haute couture shows in Paris next week - *excitement!* and by way of an introduction, a report has come out in WWD showing that despite the credit crunch followed by a global recession, sales of couture are up not down. 

‘It’s not only the dress — it’s all the service around,’ explained Stefano Sassi, CEO of Valentino, who aim to grow their couture business by 20% in 2011. ‘They want to get close to this kind of one-to-one relationship.’ What this means in reality is that rather than expecting the super rich to all drag themselves across oceans to Paris every year for Couture, they will personally export the wonders to them.

Chanel will take Karl Lagerfeld’s latest collection on tour to New York, Los Angeles and Shanghai, while Valentino will travel to Russia, after successful outings to Malaysia and Singapore in the past. Much is made of the fact that fashion brands in general are making more and more of their money from clients in the Far East, Middle East and Russia, but apparently it's not just the emerging markets whose money is burning a hole in their Hermes wallets;
‘It’s been an excellent year for couture,’ said Sidney Toledano, CEO at Christian Dior, crediting John Galliano for his recent genius collections. Demand for couture show tickets is now so high that Dior plans to almost double its guest list at the Rodin Museum in Paris on Monday to about 800 people.

As well as the women who can afford the clothes with price tags higher than that of a family car, there are plenty of other people who look forward to the biannual spectacle of the haute couture shows. 'The young generation, even if they don’t buy, they want to go to the internet and see the couture shows.…The image is so strong, and this generation is looking for strong images. There’s something magic about it.' We couldn't agree more, Mr Toledano.

WATCH THIS SPACE for all our up to the minute Couture coverage next week!

-Naomi Attwood