by There was barely room to exhale at Caviar Kaspia, a restaurant in Paris where baked potatoes cost €1,000 and are stuffed with 80 grams of Beluga caviar last Monday night. It was the first day of Paris Haute Couture week, and chairs magically kept appearing for last-minute guests who crowded around densely packed tables laden with crystal and china glasses for a post-show dinner.
A couple of boulevards away, on the Avenue de l’Opera, the havoc on the European economy was all too obvious: empty shops and sleeping bags in the doorways. But inside this luxuriously upholstered cocoon, as one caustic diner observed, “what financial crisis?”
Couture week used to be an intimate affair: small salon presentations before fashion weeks, mostly taking place in front of about 100 women. These women, aristocrats, wives of South American dictators (who got a thorough education in etiquette, interior decorating, and style from designers), often a celebrity or two, paid handsomely for the clothes they ordered, and they were the stuff of history.
Today, as evidenced by the Renoir-esque, bejeweled, taffeta-draped crowd in Caviar Kaspia, it’s a much grander affair, and a glimpse into the glitzy and outrageously extravagant world of film directors, influencers and oligarchs.
Among the celebrities, the contingent of glossy magazine editors, and social media stars filming every drop of caviar for their Instagrams and TikToks were a handful of actual customers (those who pay for their clothes).
But most of those present were not what fashion houses would call customers. French dancer, singer and actress Josephine Baker, who inspired last week’s languidly elegant Dior show, paid for her 1950s Dior as a badge of pride. Today’s phalanxes of A-listers don’t pay, also as a badge of pride.
Instead, they get paid. And last year, “since the pandemic, strangely,” a member of the fashion house told me, “his fees have become obscene, both for appearing and dressing. Haute couture shows pay more than ready-to-wear. “A celebrity with a good agent can get between £50,000 and £100,000 to sit front row. Also, they fly and stay at the Ritz or The Crillon.”
There will be more money if said A-lister posts about it on social media, which has made couture, once a secretive, elite world (though brief, highly choreographed snippets, did run on Pathé News, complete with voiceovers). of men) can be seen instantly. everyone in real time.
Were Baz Luhrmann and his wife, costume designer Catherine Martin, scouring the front rows for inspiration or funding for their next film venture?
Julianne Moore once told me that some of the most acclaimed independent films she’s starred in have budgets so small that collaborating with fashion labels is one way to afford them. At the Oscars, the going rate is $200,000-$300,000 for women to wear a dress on the red carpet, $70,000-$100,000 for men. No wonder some actresses wear two outfits from different brands to the night.
Did Grammy-winning rapper Doja Cat, who spent four hours with makeup artist supreme Pat McGrath with her body painted red and studded with jewels, fill her bank account by attending Schiaparelli’s show alongside Kylie Jenner, model, businesswoman and part of The Kardashian clan, who sat front row in their giant dress adorned with a lion’s head?
Unlikely. While the likes of Dior (whose A-list celebrities included Elizabeth Debicki, Kirsten Dunst, Rosamund Pike and Bianca Jagger); Valentine (Anne Hathaway); Chanel (Marianne Cotillard, Tilda Swinton) and Armani (Michelle Yeoh) all earn millions of dollars from haute couture clothing, Schiaparelli is a small fish with small budgets.
To break through, Schiaparelli’s current designer, Daniel Roseberry, has developed a talent for guerrilla tactics. Last week, they paid off handsomely. His (fake) stuffed animals drew outrage (Carrie Johnson), admiration (Peta), and cries of disgust (certain celebrities who said they wouldn’t wear Schiaparelli). Happy advertising opportunities in general.
So who is buying the clothes? Because make no mistake, money is changing hands, for both clothing and jewelry, shown separately in intimate presentations between runway shows. Those who deliver it come from all over, though with its multiple homes, impounded jets, and yachts that have been transferred to other names, the addresses can be a bit vague.
The Chinese still don’t travel. Russians reserve the right to identify themselves as anything but. But while the patrons may not show up in person (news of the world’s travails have permeated the walls of even its citadels, making the $300.00 hand-sewn lace shorts and matching capes unseen very good), they send their stylists to select for them. Naturally, there is a hierarchy of stylists just as there is a hierarchy of everything in haute couture, including potatoes and caviar.
At Dior’s high jewelery show, more than half the jewels in some of the cases had been reserved for the second day, at prices running into the millions. The stones are bigger. De Beers had ten-carat diamonds. Cindy Chao, a Taiwanese jewelry designer, dreamed of a pair of 11cm (the length of an evening bag) pea pod drop earrings topped with two huge cabochon emeralds and instantly sold one of them, to a man who, instead of using it, it will display on your desktop. The feeling of scarcity is crucial. At Cartier they use not only incredible stones, but also dinosaur bones, covered in diamonds sculpted into the head of a panther.
You couldn’t make it up. Then again, during couture week last week, you didn’t have to.
