Appreciating skill of haute couture

Haute couture is not your everyday clothing. Amazing? Yes. Everyday? No.

Imagine a supple crocodile skin that has been selected from hundreds of others because of its flawlessness.

Now imagine spending 350 hours of your life cutting that skin to pieces, numbering it, bleaching it, dying it and then sewing it back onto a tulle backing for a dress.

That is exactly what Ricardo Tisci and his workshop did for the Givenchy Spring 2012 Haute Couture collection in Paris. Instead of a dress, the end result is a work of art with no other like it in the world.

The Paris Chamber of Commerce regulates who may be considered a true couturier and which designers are legally allowed to use the term "haute couture" to describe their clothing.

The criteria are brutal. A designer must create made-to-order items for private clients, have a workshop in Paris that has at least

15 full-time employees and present a collection of at least 35 complete looks twice a year.

Those designers who meet the rigorous standards become members of the Union Chamber of Haute Couture. Although there are many designers who use the term "couture" to describe their ready-to-wear collections, there are only 14 official members of the group for the spring-summer 2012 season.

Although there is a sense of drama about couture, it is often only the details that set couture apart from ready-to-wear.

Karl Lagerfeld, who designs Chanel's ready-to-wear and couture collections, has said, "Extreme luxury isn't the most bling-bling, it's extreme refinement, which is couture at its finest."

If you glance fleetingly at the Armani haute couture show presented in January, you may initially see only classic silhouettes, beautiful skirts and jackets. However, if you are allowed the time to inspect the garments, you will find hidden stitches and perfectly weighted hems or hand-woven fabrics and meticulously stitched patterns.

At his recent show in Paris, Lagerfeld told Style.com, "A lot of it isn't even fabric, it's embroidery." His collection had 150 shades of blue but almost no other color.

When the hours are totaled for the time spent creating such masterpieces, one show can tally upward of 8,000 hours of labor (or almost a year) and this does not even include hours spent designing the pieces or mock-ups done out of simple cotton to get an idea for a look.

Of course, haute couture does not come without a price. Although official figures vary because of the private nature of haute couture, it is not uncommon for dresses from a collection to cost upward of $100,000. Sums like that almost make an off-the-rack Chanel suit (about $5,000) seem like a bargain.

Most people in the world will never be able to own a piece from a couture collection, but it is easy to appreciate the skill and passion that go into creating the inimitable works of art.

Seth McCormick Cooke is a stylist and freelance writer based in Charleston. Reach him at SethMcCormick@me.com.