Do you know your High Fashion from your Haute Couture

After being invited to watch the Burberry and the Yves Saint Laurent shows a few weeks back, I got to thinking about High Fashion and Haute Couture. So after searching online for ages and seeing loads of images and photographs posted all claiming to be High Fashion, I thought it was time to give an idea of what these are exactly.

So I thought I would write a blog post about just exactly what is High Fashion and what is Haute Couture.

Haute Couture

Haute Couture is the top end of the fashion tree, and it actually a licensed term in France due to the exclusive nature it. This type of fashion is typically custom made, one of a kind items, typically not off the peg stuff.

So when shooting clothes that are classed a Haute Couture you will normally be dealing direct with top end fashion houses, and shooting one of a kind pieces or one of a kind ranges, typically stuff that has a high price and is by a well known top end brand, such as
Jean Paul Gaultier, Frank Sorbier, Elie Saabwere, Maison Martin Margiela to name but a few.

Simple rule is you cant normally just buy haute couture on the high street.

High Fashion

High Fashion is kinda the next step down on the fashion ladder, and although it does not have the same exclusiveness as Haute Couture, these clothes are still very top end of the labels designs, and can be on occasion one off pieces, such as cat walk styles. Again the designers tend to be high end such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Prada and alike, basically not the stuff you will get on the high street, although it is possible to by off the peg high fashion due to the nature of the lines, and the fact they dont tend to be all one off pieces, although some are.

So basically to give you an idea of high fashion clothes, they are not clothes that you pick up in Primark or normally on the high street, they are designers doing what they do best, although you can buy cheaper versions of some designers clothes such as Yves Saint Laurent at some stores, these lines are not the high fashion end of the range.

I hope this makes some sense and gives you an idea of what Haute Couture and High Fashion are, just keep in mind that these two terms have nothing to do with the type of shoot, they have everything to do with the clothes.

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Fashion Brand H & M use Computer Generated Models in Latest Lines

Well I am all for a bit of photo editing, the odd blemish removal, exposure correction but clothing brand H&M have taken this to a whole new level.

Now let me start of first by saying I love H&M, I love the clothing styles and the photography I find very inspirational, but their latest vision has just gone way to far.

So what have they done

H&M have decided to use computer generated models in their latest campaign, they have taken a head shot of different models and added this to the body which has been completely built using computer software.

I think this is taking the whole use of computers in photography a step too far, I mean there are lots of wonderful models working out there, there are great make up artists and stylists, not to mention photographers. So why go in a direction that is not normal.

I find the normal shots of the H&M lines to be great and very natural, and normally taken on location with superb lighting and composition, but to decided to use fakery in your campaign is a step too far.

So my words to H&M are your clothes are wondeful and your ranges are too good to go and wreck it all by trying to save money and create artificial imagery.

If you check out the H&M site and look in the Swimwear section you can see the use of these images.

Final Thought

So my final word to H&M is to use real people for your campaign, this goes for the models, make up artists, photographers and the editing team. Remember "People buy from People" not computers.

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