Knocking on Haute Couture's Door

High fashion may be a shadow of its former self, but young designers like Anne Valérie Hash still aspire to join the exclusive club. Here's how the process works

By Cassidy Flanagan

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In the atelier of her Paris design house, Anne Valérie Hash watches intently as a seamstress fastens an embroidered silk belt to a dark blue gown with a plunging neckline. Hash's first haute couture runway show is 15 hours away, and the room hums with the sound of sewing machines and hissing steam irons as the 35-year-old designer and her staff make final alterations.

Hash stands at the threshold of the fashion world's most exclusive club. Only 14 houses, including such legendary names as Chanel, Christian Dior, and Valentino, are officially recognized as creators of haute couture—one-of-a-kind garments produced with exquisite attention to detail and selling for $25,000 and up. Each spring, up to 20 aspiring designers are invited to present their own collections during summer haute couture week in Paris. Hash is one of this year's invited.

Why join this club? Haute couture, which once boasted an estimated 50,000 exclusive clients worldwide, now has fewer than 2,000 regular buyers, as high-fashion garments now move quickly into mass-market sales channels. To qualify for official couture designation, a design house must have at least 15 full-time employees in its atelier and put on a couture show of at least 35 outfits, twice a year.

Still a Designer's Dream

Most fashion houses still in the couture business must subsidize it with their more-lucrative prêt-à-porter, or ready-to-wear collections. Many legendary houses such as Balenciaga and Yves St. Laurent have gotten out of couture altogether.

Yet the prestige of couture continues to attract designers like Hash, who also has her own prêt-à-porter line. After graduating from the elite Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, she worked at a half-dozen houses, polishing her skills as a seamstress, pattern-builder, and alterations specialist. "The problem with fashion today is finding young designers who have the technique to really build these types of clothing," Hash says.

Hash showed her first, self-financed prêt-à-porter collection in 2001. By 2006 she was selling 9,000 pieces a year, and counted Hollywood stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett among her clients. That success opened the door to private clients requesting custom-made couture designs. France's Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the governing organization of couture, invited her and 16 other designers to present their collections on July 2 along with the established couture houses.

The Final Hours

In early May, Hash showed sketches for 14 outfits to staff members in her atelier, on the ground floor of a 19th century Right Bank mansion that once housed a brothel. Staff members took measurements on a mannequin to determine the structure of each garment and how many individual pieces would compose it.

Instead of a flat paper pattern, they built a model of each garment from pieces of unbleached cotton cloth. With this three-dimensional pattern, known as a toile, or canvas, they could see the finished shape of the garment and make adjustments to the design, without wasting expensive fabric.

The final hours of preparation were the most intense. Hash and her staff fitted the garments onto runway models in the studio only the day before the show. Seamstresses worked late into the night making final adjustments, even as chairs were being set up in a nearby drawing room where the show was to be held.

Hash's collection ranged from a masculine-inspired smoking-jacket ensemble to sculpted, jewel-toned satin dresses and sheer, flowing evening gowns. After the models took their final walk down the runway, Hash peeked from behind a curtain and took a modest bow to acknowledge the applause.

Click here to learn more about how Hash's couture designs went from sketchbook to runway.

Flanagan is an intern in BusinessWeek's Paris bureau.