Crazy Facts About Couture Fashion Week You Don't Know

last updated 20 January 2016

The haute couture shows are like the Oscars of fashion shows—the pinnacle of the fashion community, if you will. Just. Plain. Gorgeous. While we already spilled the answers to your pressing questions about haute couture (what it actually is, the purpose, and who purchases it), we’ve got a few other fun facts up our sleeves in honour of the current shows in Paris.

Keep scrolling for the craziest facts about haute couture you didn’t know.

One gown alone can take hundreds of hours to create. This Dior dress, for example, took 200 hours.

Unlike the millions of people who buy ready-to-wear clothing worldwide, there are no more than 2000 regular customers that actually buy haute couture.

How much does your day-to-day work uniform cost? Well, couture daywear starts at £7,000.

Even though the shows take place in Paris, it's not actually where the majority of couture clients are based. For Versace, the largest client bases are in India, Russia, and Brazil.

A pair of sneakers in an haute couture show can cost £3,000. Yes, for sneakers. Case in point: these Chanel stunners.

While ready-to-wear fashion shows can attract upward of a thousand people, only 150 regular clients attend the haute couture shows twice per year.

While you'd think it would take an entire fleet of seamstresses to create all of the intricate clothing, there are only 2200 seamstresses worldwide who work on haute couture.

Are you surprised by any of these facts? Let us know in the comments below. And if you want to invest in clothes that last a time (without costing the world) shop from this edit.

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Bobby Schuessler is a fashion editor with over a decade of editorial experience covering shopping, style, and beauty. He's spent over seven years at Who What Wear, currently leading the market team to deliver highly covetable and convertible content. He creates data-driven shopping guides featuring top retailers like Nordstrom, Shopbop, and Net-a-Porter and is at the forefront of Who What Wear's shopping tentpole strategies, including Amazon Prime Day. He also works on branded content initiatives and appears on camera in video and shopping livestream franchises. He has also worked across a variety of other media brands and fashion retailers like Refinery29, PureWow, Men's Health, and Gilt covering commerce, trend reporting, women's and men's fashion, home, and lifestyle.