A little background on Haute couture, for the uninitiated: Haute couture (French for "high sewing" or "high dressmaking") refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted fashions. It originally referred to Englishman Charles Frederick Worth's work, produced in Paris in the mid-nineteenth century. In modern France, haute couture is a "protected name" that can be used only by firms that meet certain well-defined standards. [...] Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finish, often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques. [from Wikipedia]
To put it simply, most Haute couture is rather theatrical and highly impractical. It's painstakingly handmade and it's not ever going to be something you wear to go buy milk at the store. And the way the designers present it is usually incredibly fantastical; fashion as art and theatre, all at once. The best at this kind of thing, in my opinion, is Christian Lacroix. Maybe other houses were better than his before, but right now, all I want is nearly everything from his Fall 07 collection.
I liked so much of it, in fact, that I'm hard pressed to narrow it down to two or three favorite things, which is what my initial idea was as far as reviewing these lines. Generally all of it is hard to wear and only looks good on amazonian models, so how many outfits could there possibly be that I could relate to, or even want? In the case of Lacroix's collection, *so many*. But, in the interest of bandwith conservation, I will narrow it down to my seven absolute favorites (all pics courtesy of Style.com, and get thee over there asap to see the whole collection--it really is amazing).
This dress!
Can I have it? Please? Right this second? Oh, wow. It's just so gorgeous I don't even know where to begin. The ruching, the beading--even that color, which generally I find bland and unappealing, somehow looks good in this configuration.
This green jacket is perfection and the dress ain't half bad, either:
And speaking of jackets, this one is frothy and lovely (she looks kind of like a female matador, which is a neat little reference):
There's only a side view of this outfit, but even so I can tell that it's gorgeous:
This red concoction is fantastic and breathtaking (very 20's flapper):
And this is so well put together, the colors and the beading; the way it's a little outfit but also can be broken up into some wonderful pieces:
This dress is like something a princess from a fairy tale would wear:
Last but not least, the man himself, looking dapper and adorable as he escorts the final look of the collection (always a bridal gown) down his runway:
There were so many other gowns that I loved, too. It actually hurts to limit it to just these. But a lot of what I really liked was incredibly over-the-top. Ah, what the hell, here are the rest (tiny and sans comments):
