Photo: MCV Photo. Chanel’s spring '14 haute couture collection, during which models stomped down the runway wearing the low-tops my parents allowed me to BeDazzle as a second-grader, led to record sales for the fashion house. Okay, okay — the python shoes, created by specialty atelier Massaro and embellished with lace, pearls, and tweed, cost about €3,000 ($4,079), according to Style.com. But, there was a caveat: A spokesperson told British Vogue afterward the sneakers only came as part of a complete haute couture look.
So, it’s not entirely surprising that Chanel saw a 20% bump in couture sales, per Women’s Wear Daily, given the necessary full-ensemble purchase…and the genre’s new demo. “At one time couture was, so to speak, exclusively reserved for mothers,” Giorgio Armani told the trade, echoing Schiaparelli’s managing director Camilla Schiavone and Christian Dior CEO Sidney Toledano. “Today, their daughters are starting to appreciate this particularly exclusive and high-level form of fashion.” We’re all getting older! He continued, “It is a cosmopolitan audience that is demanding and informed, that doesn’t see itself in the old mold of haute couture, which was static and rigid.” Unlike the Skip-It rotating around my rhinestone-covered kicks circa 1989. (WWD)