Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Prêt-à-porter and ready-to-wear mean the same thing: the French term translates directly as ready-to-wear. Ready-to-wear garments are truly ready to wear — viewed in a store, purchased, and worn — off-the-rack, high-quality garments that are not made to measure. Gaby Aghion, the fashion designer behind the brand Chloé, was the first to coin the term prêt-à-porter. Even genuinely ready-to-wear garments still often need tailoring before they are actually worn.
Pret-a-porter Term by Apparel Search - Terms of Interest to the Fashion Industry
Fashion Terms Fashion Terms Directory Fashion Terms by Category Popular Brands Fashion Shows
Prêt-à-Porter and Ready-to-wear mean the same thing. The French translation for Prêt-à-Porter into English is Ready-to-wear. Basically Ready-to-wear, is garments that are truly "ready to wear". In other words, you view them in a store, purchase them, and you are then ready to wear them. They are off the rack, high quality, garments that are NOT made to measure.
Gaby Aghion the fashion designer behind the brand Chloé was the first to coin the term prêt-à-porter.
Note: Even though garments are "Ready-to-wear", they still often need tailoring before you actually wear them.
Written by ML at Apparel Search January 5, 2011.
Below you will find further explanation about Prêt-à-Porter as described by Regina for Apparel Search.
According to Merriam-Webster, the fashion term "pret�a�porter" means "ready-to-wear clothes."
Related terms for ready-to-wear include off-the-peg, off-the-rack, and off-the shelf.
Written for Apparel Search by Regina Cooper Nov. 2009
You may also want to learn about clothing lines.
Make sure that you develop brand recognition.
Ready-to-wear is the system nearly all clothing is sold under today, and its definition is worth stating plainly because it replaced an older default. Made-to-measure clothing begins when a customer orders; ready-to-wear begins when a designer produces a sized run of finished garments that wait in the store for whoever fits them. The customer trades an individual pattern for immediacy and a lower price, and accepts that a tailor may still be needed to close the gap between a standard size and an individual body.
The term carries a quality claim as well as a sizing one: prêt-à-porter names the designer end of ready-to-wear, presented in fashion shows and sold as finished collections under a designer's name, distinct from both couture above it and basic mass-market clothing below it. Fashion week is largely a prêt-à-porter institution — collections shown as complete, purchasable lines of ready-to-wear. This entry was written by ML at Apparel Search on January 5, 2011.
Prêt-à-porter garments are produced in standard sizes and sold off the rack, ready to wear after purchase. Haute couture garments are made to measure for an individual client. The linked haute couture and ready-to-wear pages on this site explore the contrast in detail.
Gaby Aghion, the fashion designer behind the brand Chloé, was the first to coin the term.
Yes. Even though the garments are ready to wear in the sense of being finished and sized for the rack, they still often need tailoring — hems, waist or sleeve adjustments — before an individual wears them well.