The Country of Fashion.

Hello everyone, my name is Clea I’m 16 years old, and I’m passionate about haute couture and the fashion industry. It’s why I’ve written this article! It’s good because I live in “The country of fashion” (France of course!!) I really like it, and I’m very proud of my capital city, Paris, because it is the city of fashion (and more, but this is not the theme of my article). No, more seriously in this article I want to speak about the place of Fashion and Haute Couture in my capital city, Paris! So, I hope you enjoy it, good reading!

So, as I said above, Paris is known as the fashion capital of the world, and it’s not for nothing! This is what we will see in this article. The brands of French high fashion are counted by hundreds nowadays, with know-how and national quality. But the most famous and iconic ones are still:

• COCO CHANEL
• LOUIS VUITTON
• CHRISTIAN DIOR
• YVES SAINT LAURENT
• BALMAIN
• GIVENCHY
• LANVIN
• CELINE
• HERMES
• JACQUEMUS

By way of all the French high jewellery brands, like Cartier, Chaumet… and more

Haute couture has a crucial place in Paris and in France! France is the country with the most stores and haute couture houses in the world, ahead of Italy.

The fashion weeks in Paris are quite an event, with about fifty shows per day of great or less great houses of haute couture. There are several styles of fashion week in Paris: summer and winter fashion shows, autumn and spring fashion shows, the cruise shows, the prêt-a-porter, the haute couture… in short there’s a lot!

Four main cities host Fashion Week for 4 consecutive weeks, always in the same order: New York opens the ball. Then comes London Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week and finally Paris Fashion Week (The best for last!).

Who can visit such a fashion show? The answer is simple, we can only enter by invitations, and “without lying to ourselves”, it’s not just anyone who is invited, most of them are celebrities or influencers, and of course lots of fashion journalists, on the lookout for the best looks of the show, or to interview the designer.

Some French people or foreigners like to try to enter without invitations, by putting on their best outfits, those who succeed are very lucky!

The haute couture stores in Paris and in France have great importance and influence. There are several avenues or entire streets in Paris that are completely dedicated to French luxury fashion stores, like Avenue Montaigne or Champs Élysée.

You probably ask yourself the question: but can we simply enter this kind of store?

Often what impresses or what can frighten are the security in front of the stores or that all the items are really expensive… Then to answer that, yes it can impress, but everyone can enter, if you just want, by curiosity to see the articles. No one will tell you anything, do not be afraid to push the door of this kind of store!

To give an example: I like to go to this kind of store, even if the prices are exorbitant and I can rarely buy something. The high fashion stores are worth the detour, they’re often very beautiful inside, with beautiful design and decorations…

Last week I went to the Dior store, the iconic 30 Montaigne! It was the old offices of Christian Dior, that’s where it all started! It had been under renovation for 2 years and has just reopened. It, therefore, becomes the largest Dior store in the world. So, it was incredible, everything is so beautiful, the salesmen let you take pictures as you wish. I can really recommend it.

After being passionate about this universe for more than 2 years, I think it’s a very particular industry but worth the detour, even if you’re not interested!

I discovered a lot of things about haute couture, like that anyone interested in haute couture can enter this industry, which is still very closed nowadays…

Personally, the French high fashion houses that I recommend and that are my favourites are CELINE, JACQUEMUS and DIOR.

I hope that as the years go by, fashion will open its mind and will be able to touch more and more different public, not only a clientele of the elite.

That’s all with my article. Thank’s for reading it, I hope you enjoy it! Don’t hesitate to ask me some questions