The Fashion Philosopher: HAUTE COUTURE SS12- ARE THE SUPER RICH TAKING OVER THE HOLY GRAIL OF FASHION NOW

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely adore Haute Couture yet I found a very interesting article in The Guardian titled 'Haute Couture shows: Nice frocks-no shocks' by Jess Cartner- Morley stating the fact that in the last 2 year Haute Couture houses are having increased sales and that the Couture fashion is dictated by the super rich clients and not by the genius creativity of the designers anymore.
Firstly I must say she is right- it is crazy that Couture sales are going up while whole countries are going bust. And I am not talking Third World countries, no, countries like Greece, countries which are part of our rich Western capitalistic world! But on the other hand there seem to be more and more super rich giving a shit or becoming even more super rich in all this misery and spending cash as if we haven't had a substantial crisis in everything what our grand parents where fighting for like a broad middle class, social welfare, free education and the abolition of class barriers... . Capitalism has gone bonkers and we small people pay for these dresses!

I feel as if we are back in the Victorian area and the 20th century has never happened with all its social changes for a more justice world in which a broad middle class can have a good live.
Yves Saint- Laurent build up pret-a- porter in the 1960's since with all the social changes during that period he saw Haute Couture as a dinosaur on the edge of dying out. So in the last decades Haute Couture developed into a necessary play ground for designers to keep dying craftsmanship alive, to show their amazing creativity and develop new cuts and ideas for pret-a- porter. Yet this is changing now, Haute couture is getting a play ground for the super rich again who do not care about ideas and skills they just want to show off their wealth in dresses which cost £ 100 00 and more while our salaries, that of the 'normal' people has not gone up since the 1970's considering of inflation while manager salaries increased by 270%- this is the new brave world.

With a tendency to see more and 'boring and wearable' clothes during the Haute Couture shows there is still some hope for example Ricardo Tisci's collection for Givenchy stands out. Ironically, his inspiration comes from Fritz Lang's 1920's social- critical film 'Metropolis', in which a huge working class society is enslaved to work their asses off by a corrupt system and the struggle of these people to free themselves. The film was created on the background of the European and Russian struggle of communist and democratic attitudes after the break down of royalism and aristocracy after WWI.

The dresses are truly stunning combing high fashion with working class sartorial stable like tank tops. Yet maybe Tisci has also the gut feeling that again we must fight for our rights and freedom to live a wealthy and justice live in a democratic and socially secured world. Couture is art and should be seen as such! It should not being sold off for a ridiculous amount of money and vanish behind locked doors of the super rich where just they can enjoy it. Or even worse being robbed of its creative roots and drained to a boring piece of uber- expensive party wear.