Haute couture

Haute couture (/ˌoʊt kuːˈtjʊər/ ^ⓘ; French pronunciation: [ot kutyʁ]; French for 'high sewing', 'high dressmaking') is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design. The term haute couture is French, "haute" meaning "high" or "elegant," and "couture" translating to "sewing" or "dressmaking." The term haute couture generally refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to the upper portion of a modern dress to distinguish it from the skirt and sleeves. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became the centre of a growing industry that focused on making outfits from high-quality, expensive, often unusual fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable of sewers—often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques.^[1][2] Couture translates literally from French as "dressmaking", sewing, or needlework^[3] and is also used as a common abbreviation of haute couture and can often refer to the same thing in spirit.^[4]