So, What Exactly Is Haute Couture?

by Ruthie Friedlander | 11:27 am, July 8th, 2010

This week, we’ve been bringing you highlights from Paris Couture Week. Karl Lagerfeld walked a model in a stuffed lion mask down the runway, Dita Von Teese strutted Gaultier’s in a dominatrix outfit to which only she could do justice, and the models that walked the Dior runway brought new meaning to botanics. It’s easy to look at these elaborate runway shows and ogle over their extraordinariness. But when you take away Karl’s eight-ton lion, what exactly are we looking at? What is Haute Couture? And why does it have its own week?