Couturier

Fashion Design

A Word Tied to Haute Couture

The definition is deliberately narrow: a couturier is not simply anyone who designs clothes, but someone involved in the haute couture business, aiding in its design, manufacturing or sales. All three activities are included, which matters — the word covers the people who make and sell haute couture as well as the named designer at the head of a house. That breadth reflects how haute couture actually works: a garment reaches a client through design, through the atelier that manufactures it, and through the salon that sells it, and the definition treats participation in any of those stages as part of the couturier's world. The term is French in origin and carries the standing of the Paris couture houses with it, which is why it is reserved for this level of the trade rather than used as a general synonym for designer.

The Names That Carry the Term

Four famous couturiers are named: Christian Dior, Gabrielle Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint-Laurent. Each represents a different route through the same business. Dior founded his Paris house in 1946 and defined post-war couture with the 1947 New Look. Chanel built her house on expensive simplicity, the Chanel suit and the little black dress. Saint-Laurent began as Dior's assistant and successor before opening his own maison de couture. The four names together span the founding generation of modern couture and the generation that inherited it — and two of them, Dior and Chanel, have their own full definitions among the designer pages in this section, where the careers behind the title are set out in detail.

Couturier and Designer: Two Levels of One Trade

The designer definition in this section, drawn from the U.S. Department of Labor, describes designers across every field — automobiles, publications, interiors and clothing among them — and treats fashion design as one specialisation among many. Couturier is the opposite kind of word: it names one narrow, senior corner of one of those fields. Charles Frederick Worth, whose own definition appears in this section, is described there as the first of the couturiers — dressmakers considered artists rather than mere artisans — because he displayed model dresses at shows four times a year and let patronesses choose models to be sewn in fabrics of their choice and tailored to their figures. That is the standard the word still implies: original models, luxurious materials, meticulous fit, and a clientele who come to the house rather than a house that follows the customer.