What happened to Haute Couture this season? New perspectives between fresh debuts and familiar confirmations

The Haute Couture Week in Paris has just concluded, but among new debuts, familiar confirmations, and unexpected surprises, there is something that does not convince the fashion system. From this season, questions emerge on three levels: aesthetics, the redefinition of the hierarchical boundary between Haute Couture and ready-to-wear, which this year seems to have become thinner, and the role of Couture as a branding tool in a context marked by a growing luxury sales crisis.

The reflection also concerns the very function of Couture today. Should these garments remain unrepeatable spectacles for the socials, or return to a normality that reflects the clients’ lives? The central question is precisely about the meaning and destination of a luxury that historically has not known mass production. Haute Couture seems to be entering a new era, one of the last remnants of the old-world hierarchy, with the arrival of a new generation of designers who are infusing it with something new, unexpected, and not without risks.

How does haute couture work? 

Haute Couture is perhaps the crown jewel of the entire fashion system, not necessarily in terms of revenue but for the savoir-faire of the maisons. Not all brands can aspire to take a place in the pantheon of high fashion: the title is protected by French law and regulated by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture (part of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode). To be officially recognized as a maison, a brand must meet specific criteria: have ateliers in Paris with at least fifteen permanent employees; present collections twice a year with at least fifty looks per season (day and evening); and create each garment made-to-measure using traditional tailoring techniques.

Part of the controversy raised by the more general online public concerns precisely the concept underlying Couture: garments as manifestos of heritage and savoir-faire formed with a spectacular component that makes them almost works of art. However, this is part of a contemporary imagination of Haute Couture, as in the first half of the 20th century, bespoke garments, although made-to-measure for clients, followed a tradition of impeccable craftsmanship and rigorous tailoring, without market segmentation. Today, however, the distinction between segments is more evident due to branding. In this sense, the unusual presence of bags in the Dior show becomes a significant signal: a rare element in a Couture context, but precisely for this reason revealing of a change in the industry.

The new era of Haute Couture

Claiming that Haute Couture garments could resemble ready-to-wear is, without a doubt, blasphemy. Yet, after the Chanel Couture SS26 show by Matthieu Blazy and the Dior Couture SS26 by Jonathan Anderson, critics noticed that the two collections almost seemed like simple extensions of their respective ready-to-wear lines.

Rather than asking what is couture and what is not, the real question concerns why it seemed so different to us. Haute Couture, for reasons of hierarchy but also tailoring, should enjoy its own autonomy, remaining distant from the dynamics that animate prêt-à-porter, such as trends or, more simply, the risk of standardizing the imagination.

However, there are two issues to consider. The first concerns the shift in the content of presentations. In recent years, shows have become increasingly laden with meanings, references, and cultural layers. Some succeed in activating these codes authentically, while others, on the contrary, attempt at all costs to appear culturally relevant. In this scenario, the conceptual dimension sometimes seems to replace substance. At the same time, the other side of the coin is that the same spectacularization of the garment may have functioned as a screen behind which to hide in the absence of real content.

If the truth lies in the middle, then it can be said that a seemingly simple or visually minimal garment is not necessarily devoid of content. On the contrary, this formal synthesis could represent precisely the device we needed to adopt new points of view, both on Couture and on fashion itself. Spectacularization distracts: it is fast and dopamine-driven. Synthesis, on the other hand, when it takes into account the needs of the cultural and social context, demonstrates how fashion is reclaiming a ritual and critical dimension. No longer a surface to be traversed quickly, but a threshold on which to learn to pause, in contemplation of the world.

In this sense, Haute Couture - or rather, the designers who today operate within this context—does not imitate prêt-à-porter, but appropriates a specific ability: that of questioning reality, shedding a solemnity that over time had become self-serving. It is not about replacing the language of Haute Couture, but about creating a new one. Perhaps because the previous, hierarchical and solemn language could no longer convey anything, nor communicate messages and narratives that today are central in contemporary culture. A Haute Couture that remains aware of its tradition, its diktats, and processes, but renews itself in points of view, formality, and modes of storytelling.