A model at last summer’s Christian Dior show in Paris mixes fashion with jewellery. Photograph: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images
What to do when €35,000 (£31,670) dresses just aren't getting your industry enough attention? Adding some mind-blowingly expensive jewels into the mix could be one solution. Diversification from hand-stitched clothing into jewellery is the latest scheme designed to save haute couture fashion.
The 140-year-old Chambre Syndicale, French fashion's governing body, has invited seven major jewellers – including Boucheron, Cartier, Chanel Joaillerie, Dior Joaillerie and Van Cleef & Arpels – to present their creations during haute couture week in Paris next month. It said the marriage of haute couture and high jewellery would provide "a unique window of exclusivity" and was "the absolute unification of technical know-how".
The chambre hopes the jewellery showcase will attract more attention and visitors to haute couture week, which has seen the number of fashion houses that participate dwindle from 100 in 1945 to about 10.
The move also highlights the chambre's determination to use couture's unique position at the top of the fashion pyramid, in terms of creativity and rarity, to create a buzz around the shows, which in turn can be harnessed to sell cheaper accessories and perfumes to the masses. It is hoped the "jewellery day" will add significantly to this couture-as-advertisement effect.
Fashion insiders think the initiative will boost couture week. Harriet Quick, fashion features director at Vogue, commented: "It won't reinvent the week because fine jewellery has always been there at couture but, at a time when the number of shows are diminishing, you have to play to your strengths and highlight the extraordinary craftsmanship involved."
She said it would attract wealthy customers seeking to buy jewellery as investment pieces, in much the same way that art fairs lure collectors.
In recent years the chambre has sought to rejuvenate haute couture week by relaxing its criteria for membership of the elite club who are allowed to showcase their collections there.
In 2005 Giorgio Armani joined the couture roster with his Privé line and last year newcomer Alexis Mabille received critical acclaim for his couture collection, which led to clients from the Middle East buying his designs over the internet and having their alterations shipped backwards and forwards by courier.
The announcement comes after a bad week for haute couture. On Tuesday French courts approved a restructuring plan for bankrupt label Christian Lacroix which reduced the once celebrated Parisian label from haute couture house to a licensing operation selling just perfumes and accessories. Only a skeleton staff of between 15 and 20 employees remain. Experts commented that the label failed because it concentrated its efforts on couture clothes and did not diversify enough into more accessible products.
Successful ready-to-wear lines have suffered too. Last month, it was announced that the British label Luella was to cease trading after a key financier pulled out. The label was designed by Luella Bartley, who was named British designer of the year in 2008.
