Secret World of Haute Couture
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 at 9:40PM 
Chanel Couture, Spring 2006 - this gown features prominently in "Secret World of Haute Couture"This evening I was delighted to find a fashion-related program AND without commercials! Okay, so I don't have Tivo, sue me. But I do have PBS, and their programming is still some of the best on television. Tonight featured a lovely one-hour program produced by the BBC entitled Secret World of Haute Couture.
Film director Margy Kinmonth takes us along for the ride as she interviews members of "the club" - the elite group of women who live within the rarified air of $100,000.00 pieces of clothing. Slowly, reluctantly, the club members let her into their homes and their closets where they show off their favorite pieces of couture. They also talk about cuts, shapes, embellishments, designers and collections with the kind of authority that only comes from passionate appreciation. These women know their stuff, as well they should!
My favorite club member had to be Betsy Bloomingdale, whose closet is so wel-organized that she keeps a hangtag on every hanger that denotes when and where she wore each piece. This kind of first-hand fashion history is quickly fading from our current world, so I'm glad someone caught it on film!
But the beauty of this documentary is that it isn't simply gratuitous expenditure. Ms. Kinmonth learns they why and the how of the entire process. Haute couture is an art form that employed over 40,000 craftspeople in Paris just fifty years ago; today the industry only has 4,500. Ms. Kinmonth shows how "this anachronistic fashion club" is keeping the art alive by supporting the creators and making yearly investments in showstopping pieces.
The documentary will be airing again on PBS over the next few days, so if you're like me and still don't have Tivo you should be able to catch it. If you do, be sure so set this one on your recordings - you won't regret it!
Chanel, John Galliano, documentary, fashion, film, haute couture in Latest Crush, Movie Chic 
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