Tag: Features

I was on an elevator a few years back, on my way to a theater I’d been booked into, when two women boarded, both middle-aged and smelling of alcohol. It was autumn, and they had new-looking sweatshirts on. I assumed that the letters printed across the fronts of them were the initials of a university, and as the doors closed, I tried to guess which one it was. After deciding that the first letter—N—stood for “Northern,” I lost interest, and tried to recall when I’d last been in Traverse City. It’s a pretty little vacation town on a bay of Lake Michigan, the sort of place where it’s super easy to find fudge.

I started performing—a rather grand word for reading out loud—in the late 1980s, in Chicago. Back then, I was living hand to mouth, but always made it a point to dress for a show. I did it out of respect for the audience, but also because it made me look and feel professional, and I needed all the help I could get. It didn’t require a great deal of effort. All I really did was wear slacks rather than jeans or shorts. I’d make certain my shirt was pressed, and put on a tie. I added jackets only after my second book came out, and I began to undertake lengthy tours, lasting anywhere from six weeks to two months at a time. At first, the jackets were bought for me at Barneys by my boyfriend, Hugh, who worked at the Gap in high school and told me that shoppers would sometimes defecate in the dressing rooms there. It wasn’t about a scarceness of toilets—there were plenty in the mall his store was a part of. It didn’t even have anything to do with the Gap. When I started talking about it onstage, I learned that it happened at Banana Republic as well; at J. Crew and Old Navy, even at big-box places like Walmart, where folks would pull down their pants and crouch in the center of those circular clothing racks. It’s a compulsion certain people have.

Hugh learned to fold at the Gap and perfected his technique after college, when, for a brief time, he worked at Comme des Garçons in New York. This was in the late ’80s, when I was still in Chicago. Back then, the men’s Homme Plus jackets could be slightly off-kilter. If you looked at one closely, you’d maybe notice a barely discernible camouflage pattern or see that it was polka-dotted. Examine a shirt or a pair of slacks, and, if you were in any way sensitive to such things, you’d see that they were extremely well made, that the collar wouldn’t fray anytime soon and that the buttons would likely stay put.

During the time that Hugh worked at Comme des Garçons, no one ever defecated in the dressing room. Maybe the people who do that sort of thing were too intimidated to enter, though I have to say I’ve always found the sales team in the New York store to be excessively kind and welcoming—the same at the Paris and Tokyo outlets, and at London’s Dover Street Market. That said, it took me years to enter one of their stores. I was afraid that I’d be sized up and judged unworthy. It’s nothing the staff did or said; rather, these were insecurities I brought through the front door with me: I’m not good-looking enough. I need more hair. My legs should be longer. My tongue’s too fat. Comme des Garçons is not about that, though. Its designer, Rei Kawakubo, doesn’t traffic in young and sexy. If she could magically reposition a woman’s breasts—move them from her chest to the top of her head—I have no doubt that she’d do it. Likewise, there’s nothing aggressively masculine about her menswear. (I mean, business shirts with five-foot-long pussy bows?) I started off timidly with ties. Now I buy almost all my clothing there.

The thing about Kawakubo’s more recent Homme Plus wear is that it’s very hard to describe. “It’s a traditional sport coat until the bottom of the rib cage, where the wool is replaced by a sort of gathered curtain, the kind you’d see on the windows of a hearse,” I found myself saying once, in reference to a jacket I’d recently bought. “Five inches of that, and it becomes a sport coat again and falls midway down my calves in a cascade of ruffles.”

The person I was talking to wasn’t getting it.

“You know the black dress Mammy wears to Bonnie Blue Butler’s funeral in Gone With the Wind? It feels like that, but for men, and it’s really heavy.”

The person still wasn’t getting it, so I pulled out my notebook and my pen and tried drawing it, which didn’t work either.

The jacket I was wearing on the elevator that evening in Traverse City, Michigan, was of a regular length but for the side pockets, which drooped like deflated airbags to my knees. With it, I had on a pair of stiff polyester culottes that felt like an outdoor tablecloth and had a pink and gold flower pattern on them. My shirt was white and had long, shoelace-like fringe running from the front yoke to a few inches below my waist.

“Let me guess,” said one of the women who’d boarded, looking me up and down. “Halloween, right?”

We were well into November, so I knew she didn’t actually think I was going to a costume party. Plus, it was a Tuesday. I should have just laughed. Instead I said, perhaps too haughtily, “I am the best-dressed person on this elevator.”

Then I went to the theater, did my sound check, and peed on the fringe dangling down my front. That’s the thing with some of these clothes. You think, Why aren’t all dress shirts this fun? Then you wear one to Thanksgiving dinner, come away with cranberry sauce on your oversize, leg-o’-mutton sleeves, and realize, Oh, that’s why. Once, I got a shirt that had a slightly larger, second pair of sleeves over the first. The outer ones were shredded from the shoulder to the cuff, and caught on every doorknob I passed.

My audience can name the assistant secretaries of both State and Commerce but has no idea who Rei Kawakubo is. I walk onstage, and as they laugh and point I think, Really? To my mind, I look great, or at least as good as it’s possible for me to look. It astonishes me that in this day and age anyone might question a man wearing a long skirt. Is it because I have it on sideways? I sometimes wonder when I’m intentionally wearing one sideways. Is it because it’s inside out? The salesperson suggested I wear it this way. “You can also tie it around your neck as a cape,” she’d said. “It’s great for keeping your back warm!”

It used to be that people would dress up for a night out, but as the years pass the sartorial difference between me and my audience grows ever wider. “Is that a bathing suit you’re wearing?” I asked a man one night as he stepped up to get his book signed.

He looked down. “How can you tell?”

“It has no fly, there are two strings hanging down the front, and the Nike swoosh is printed at the bottom of your left leg.”

I don’t feel slighted when people in my audience show up in sweatpants and cargo shorts. I’m just puzzled by it. Who doesn’t look forward to putting an interesting outfit together? I wonder. Especially if they’re going to a nice restaurant or have spent a lot of money on a theater or concert ticket? Actually, do you even need a reason? I wake in the morning and then lie in bed, wondering out loud what I’ll wear to my desk. “The upside-down trousers with the mangled sweater, or with a tie and the shirt that was printed to always look filthy?” Later, I’ll change for lunch, then again for dinner. Finally, there’ll be an après-bath outfit. It’s not necessarily called for; I just have a lot of clothes and like to keep them circulating.

Because I’m such a good customer, Comme des Garçons has started inviting me to its biannual Homme Plus runway shows in Paris. Most people in the audience are buyers for whom this might be their sixth appointment of the day. They’re dressed for endurance, which makes sense. Then there are us fanatics, a club of sorts that rarely gets to hobnob. At one of the recent shows, I sat near a man wearing a gown from that season’s women’s collection. What surprised and delighted me was how very unremarkable the part of him not designed by Rei Kawakubo looked. It was like seeing someone’s nebbishy accountant—balding and with squarish, wire-rimmed glasses—being swallowed almost completely by an enormous, man-eating tulip. “You’re amazing!” I shouted, figuring it must be hard for him to hear buried to the temples in all that fabric.

The day after the most recent runway show, I spoke to an Argentinian fashion editor I’d met a few years earlier. He’d just broken up with his girlfriend and told me he had spent the entire morning in tears. “Maybe if you beg really hard, you can get her back,” I said. »

“That won’t work,” he told me. “She left because I kind of cheated on her.”

“Okay,” I said. “How about this: Tell her you’re on some new medication. Admit that you hadn’t read the instructions that came with it, and that after a few drinks you woke up remembering nothing in this strange woman’s bed.”

“That won’t work,” the editor said. “The other woman was a friend of hers.” He looked at me then as if for the first time. “What are those shorts you’re wearing?”

“They’re from the Comme des Garçons Shirt line,” I told him. “This current season.”

His eyes moved from my head to my feet. “You know who you dress like?” I sucked in my stomach and waited for it.

“Mrs. Doubtfire,” he finally said.

“Is there anyone worse?” I asked my Japanese friend Michiko, who was standing there with me.

“Who is this Mrs. Doubtfire?” she asked.

“Someone who never cheated on her girlfriend,” I said.

Crushed, I walked back to my apartment and took off the two-tone clown shoes I’d bought because I have bunions and they’re soft with a wide toe box. I took off the culottes that were white polyester and unevenly printed with a madras pattern. Finally, I removed the shirt that was missing half its collar and changed into something an off-duty golf pro might have worn: white slacks and a blue polo shirt. I don’t own any loafers, so I stuck with a pair of suede derbies. Then I walked through the Luxembourg Gardens thinking, Who looks like Mrs. Doubtfire now, you skunk? I hate it when guys cheat and then try to get sympathy for it. “You were crying all morning?” I said, imagining that the editor was in front of me. “What about her? And it was with her friend of all people?”

All it really takes to pull off Comme des Garçons is confidence. With it, you can walk through a hotel lobby in Traverse City, Michigan, or Shreveport, Louisiana, and completely ignore the looks and comments you’re guaranteed to attract. You can appear on TV and laugh when the host makes a joke about your armless jacket because, well, it is funny that it has no arms, that it’s essentially a plaid bell, but that doesn’t mean you don’t look terrific in it. Though one might think otherwise, I never wanted to be stared at. I just wanted to wear the clothes I felt most at home in. If the price for that is unwanted attention, or even being compared to Mrs. Doubtfire, isn’t it still worth it? Especially when the alternative is so boring?

After two turns around the garden, I returned to my apartment and stepped back into some Comme des Garçons. “Do I look stupid?” I asked Hugh.

He kept his eyes on his laptop. “You? Of course not.”

“That’s all I needed to hear,” I said as I headed back into the world, my head held high in part because my stiff Elizabethan collar wouldn’t allow me to lower it.

The only thing more elusive than the price of couture is the question of who, exactly, is buying it. In W’s March 1999 issue, Juergen Teller photographed a story called “The Clients.” Dennis Freedman, W’s Creative Director at the time, had asked him to shoot the couture collections, and Teller decided to photograph the clothes on actual clients—including Marie-Chantal of Greece, Ann Getty, and Deeda Blair. For our Originals Issue, W Editor in Chief Sara Moonves asked Teller to revisit the portfolio. At the July couture shows, he shot the new generation of couture clients, from Princess Olympia of Greece (the daughter of Marie-Chantal) and Ivy Getty (the granddaughter of Ann) to Alexa Dell (of the technology conglomerate). Below, 11 patrons explain why they buy couture.

Ivy Getty

Can you see out of that mask?

You can, but not enough where I’m like, Oh, that’s how the models walked. This is part of couture— it’s not meant to be easy to wear. You’re doing it for fashion.

When did you start going to shows?

My first ready-to-wear Fashion Week ever was in 2015. It was Paris, and I was with my grandma [philanthropist and fashion darling Ann Getty]. For couture, I think it was with the photographer Ellen von Unwerth in 2021. I was very excited that Ellen wanted to go with me to the Giambattista Valli show. Right before it, she came to my room and was like, “Let’s have a photo shoot right now.” A couple months later, she said, “Are you coming to the dinner tonight?” I was like, “What dinner?” She was like, “For the magazine cover.” She put me on the cover of her magazine and didn’t even tell me!

Do you have a group of couture friends?

You get to know people—I used to think maybe these are my fashion friends, but these really are your friends. I get FOMO when I miss couture, obviously because of the shows, but I get FOMO from seeing my friends all together.

A few years ago, John Galliano made you a couture wedding gown. What was it like working with him?

He understands people very quickly—he’ll know me better than I know myself when making any decision. He finds inspiration in literally a crack in the sidewalk. It’s something I won’t ever understand, but it’s like whatever Albert Einstein had with math.

Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark

What was your first couture show?

When I was 10 years old, I went to the 45th anniversary Valentino couture show in Rome. I sat on my dad’s lap. I ended up interning for Dior when I was 17. After that, I started attending shows on my own.

In 1999, Juergen Teller did a photo series for W similar to this one, and your mom, Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece, was in it. Have you seen that photo?

It’s in New York in her bedroom. A couple days before I got the email about this shoot, I was standing in the room staring at the portrait, like, God, that really just is one of the coolest photos in the whole world. I would do anything to be shot by him.

Does she still have the feathered Balmain by Oscar de la Renta gown she wore in her portrait?

I’m going to text her right now…. She says, “Hmm, I think I do :)”

Do you get her couture hand- me-downs?

During Covid, I was in the English countryside with my mother. There was a room in the attic. I thought it was a storage space for furniture. I was bored, and I saw it unlocked. I found my mother’s couture dresses. I was like, How has she been hiding this from me for so long?

A few people have described couture as a club. Is that true?

You’re literally so right. The shows are like going back to summer camp or something.

Claire Paull

Your job is far from the fashion world—you’re the vice president of global marketing at Amazon Ads. How did you get into couture?

My mother had a really beautiful wardrobe. She would always wear Chanel and St. John. I spent a lot of time in her closet, daydreaming. She would say, “You can have all these things Mommy has—you could have even better—but you have to work.” I often tease that when I’m 85 years old and no longer working at Amazon, I’ll be an intern for Chanel or Dior.

Are you the best-dressed Amazon employee?

It’s a tech company. People wear jeans, and it’s very casual. I dress. I often wear a long Dior skirt, a T-shirt, slingbacks, and a cardigan. Or I will wear jeans and a Chanel or Dior sweater.

You live in New York—how often do you make it to the Paris couture shows?

It comes down to what I can make happen. Last July, I was sitting in a conference room in Seattle, and I got a text from Dior: “Claire, will you please come to couture?” All I wanted was to make that happen. Then I remembered: Claire, you shouldn’t. You’re going to have to miss a bunch of things for work.

What’s your favorite piece in your collection?

I think I’m going to order this Dior red dress. If I already owned it, that would be the answer.

Christine Chiu

You starred in and coproduced Bling Empire, a reality show about wealthy Asian Americans in Los Angeles. On the show, people got a glimpse of your couture trove.

My dad was a huge Issey Miyake and Armani collector. He put me in Issey Miyake—they don’t make children’s wear, but he would have womenswear cut to my proportions. All I wanted to wear were pretty pink dresses and tutus. I was fortunate enough to marry a man who wanted me to tap into that part of my imagination and creativity. You have to ease into couture. I started with the shoes and accessories. We’re talking about a $40,000 belt and $25,000 boots.

How big is your collection?

I’ve been buying since I was 25, maybe 26. Now I’m 42. I’ve never had a season where I haven’t purchased something.

What’s your favorite piece?

My favorite piece I haven’t worn is a Dior gold house. They were renovating their maison on Avenue Montaigne, and they decided to make a gold human-size replica. I saw it, and I was like, Yes, I have to have that. It’s light enough to walk around in—it’s not solid gold.

What couture etiquette have you learned?

As someone who was a first-generation haute couture buyer at 25, I definitely did not say the right things. My first big faux pas was asking what the price was. There was silence. You could see color drain from faces in shock. You ask for “information,” and they prepare a whole packet. Chanel had tweed portfolios with inserts, and at the bottom was the price in calligraphy. You’re supposed to delicately say, “I would like to discover more information.”

I heard you once bought a Dolce & Gabbana couture dress, and they made you a couture padded booty short to go underneath it.

My husband is a plastic surgeon, so it’s ironic. Surgically, he can help create whatever silhouette I envision for myself, but couture can do the same thing.

Cecily Waud

You work in interior design and, as you described it, formerly did “diplomatic stuff.” When did you get into couture?

When I was really young, with my mom, mainly at Dior. Over the years, you get to know everybody. I started being invited to the couture shows before I bought couture, actually.

What was your first couture piece?

I was married before, and Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior did my wedding dress. I rewore the dress for Chiuri’s last show for Dior because all the women had to wear white. A lot of us decided to rewear the wedding dresses she’d made us.

Do you still do shows and appointments with your mom?

I’ll FaceTime her. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll say, “No, we’re not paying for that, sweetie.”

Have you purchased any couture recently?

My family’s color is lavender. I just had a Chanel jacket made, and they did lavender stitching. Their buttons are the most fun thing to pick, ever. They have the biggest selection of the craziest buttons. But they didn’t have one that worked out of, like, 30,000 buttons. I wanted a super light lavender one with a gold star in the middle.

How different are ready-to-wear and couture shows?

Ready-to-wear shows are just such zoos. With couture, it feels a lot more intimate. It’s not Instagram models trying to get a shot to be like, “I came to the show.” Couture is more like going to an art gallery.

Alexa Dell

You come from the tech world—your dad, Michael Dell, started Dell Technologies, and you’ve had a few tech-focused jobs. When did you get into buying couture?

I’m new to collecting and have two pieces so far. The first is my Schiaparelli wedding gown. From September 2024 to March 2025, the dress traveled as much as I did: a muslin fitting in Los Angeles; two fittings at Place Vendôme, in Paris; and a final session back in L.A., where the atelier stitched my name into the lining. The second is from Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture by Ludovic de Saint Sernin—the “sand” dress I wore during the wedding weekend.

Will you wear them again?

They’re meant to live, not hide in storage. The Schiaparelli bodice could pair with vintage jeans, and the skirt with a simple tank for an anniversary dinner someday.

How quickly do you know which garments you want?

I can usually trust my first reaction.

Lauren Amos

You’ve been buying experimental fashion for your Atlanta boutiques, Wish and Antidote, since 2004. When did you start personally collecting couture?

I got into couture through Iris van Herpen. I’m on the board of the High Museum of Art, in Atlanta. We brought her in for her first exhibition in America in 2015, and she let me borrow a dress—I ended up buying it. It’s a jump going from ready-to-wear to couture. But she was young in her career, and I knew I was supporting an artist.

How long have you been buying Balenciaga couture?

When Demna came in, I was like, What is this situation? I was obsessed. Then I got really irritated with some of the designs. I felt like, Is someone making fun of me? Are they in a boardroom like, “Hahaha, look at this girl. She spent $5,000 on a polyester dress?” But the things I’m challenged by the most are the things with which I end up having the biggest love affair. Then I got invited to my first couture show—I think it was Demna’s first, too. I remember thinking, Oh my god, this is incredible. I walked my way right into an appointment to buy.

How many fittings are usually required for a couture piece?

Well, Iris has a 3D rendering of my body. We have a mannequin for me at the atelier.

Do you reserve your couture pieces for special occasions?

I’ve worn a couture piece to work before. I try to not put anything on too high a pedestal.

How do you store the garments?

Someone keeps all of my stuff in L.A. I’m a steward of the pieces. I have a responsibility to take care of them, and I have five cats.

Natasha Poonawalla

You and your family work in biotechnology: Your husband is the CEO of the Serum Institute of India, the country’s largest vaccine manufacturer, which your father-in-law founded. Now you’re the executive director of the company. But you’re also known as a fixture on the couture circuit.

In India, the idea of customization and craftsmanship is deeply embedded in our culture. One of my first formal purchases was for my wedding: a couture gown by Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla, for our reception in India.

Do you rewear pieces?

Absolutely. That’s the beauty of couture: You buy less, you buy well, and you celebrate the artistry behind it. One of my favorite mix-and-match moments was pairing a Schiaparelli bustier with a Sabyasachi sari dripping with Indian jewels. Whimsical fashion and beautiful things are mood elevators—and sometimes conversation starters, too.

How much do you tweak the runway designs?

Sometimes I have a clear vision—usually a version of the runway piece tailored to better suit my body— but it’s always the designer’s creation. I see myself as a collaborator, not a codesigner.

Allison Sarofim

Although you were born and raised in Houston—and spend a lot of time on Oahu, where you developed your beauty line, Loulu Hawai’i—you’re known for throwing the most fashionable Halloween party in Manhattan, which sometimes involves couture costumes. When did you start buying couture?

I’m dear friends with Giambattista Valli, and I was at his first couture show, in 2011. I’ve worn his designs for years to the Met Gala and to my Halloween parties. There may have been a custom cat tail involved when I was Pussy Couture—after the James Bond character Pussy Galore.

What’s the fitting process like for a couture garment?

Luckily, I fit into most of the sample pieces. Giamba will change, like, 2 millimeters on the neck. I’m very short-waisted—the waistlines are a little too long on me, but the hem isn’t. You have to change the waistline, not the hemline. It’s little things like that that make couture very different.

Where do you keep your couture?

I donate most of my pieces back to the designers for their archives. The Matières Fécales suit I wore to this year’s Met Gala is on a mannequin on display in my closet. It’s like the portrait of Dorian Gray in the attic!

Hayley Sullivan

In January, you married Deven Marrero, a former MLB player, and wore multiple Dior couture garments for the festivities. Why Dior?

I met with several different houses, and each house came back with some preliminary drawings. Dior just really felt like they zoomed into my soul and saw me. My dress came on a mannequin in a 10-foot-tall box. My mom was like, “How are we going to get this in the house?” Once you understand the craftsmanship and the art behind couture, then you’re like, Well, here I am. Can’t turn back the clock. It’s also part of my professional life as the founder of the Styled by Collective. So I have an easier time justifying being a couture client. We’re not buying fast fashion that ends up in landfills, which is horrible for the environment and in terms of labor laws.

What’s your approach to buying?

These are things that I actually want to live my life in. How you dress is the corporeal experience of your personality and who you are.

Houses typically make one couture garment per continent. How quickly do you have to claim a piece?

I’ve had it happen where I tried something on and I loved it. I needed to think about it—it was early in Couture Week, and I was like, I’m not ready to put the deposit down. Twenty-four hours later, it was gone.

Jordan Roth

For decades, you’ve been a Broadway theater producer. Your well-documented wardrobe is very theatrical too.

Fashion has always been a vocabulary for me. Couture is the fantasy, that glorious gown on a hill. But it was meant for bodies that didn’t look like mine. It wasn’t until Clare Waight Keller at Givenchy showed men’s couture that I felt invited. I went to the salon to see the first Givenchy pieces, and, my god, going to a couture salon is like the doors of heaven have opened.

Did you buy anything from that collection?

I saw this blouse, impeccably pleated chiffon that hung in an X formation across the body. I thought, Well, that’s the angel. I was a few months away from opening the Broadway revival of Angels in America that I coproduced, and I said, “I’m going to wear that.” In true couture magic, they proposed embroidering feathers on the collar. It’s a two-part play, seven hours in total. The entire time, I sat at the edge of my seat with my back off the chair so that I would not crease this magnificent crepe chiffon.

What’s it like working with the ateliers on garments?

My first several couture pieces were made for special experiences in my life. They would start with something I wanted to express about an event. Often, that would manifest as text I would write to become a vision-slash–mission statement of the piece. And I’d bring that to the right designer to explore the idea.

Has buying couture changed the way you dress generally?

Oh, yes. It’s a constant expanding of the canvas, of the possibilities. Watching it be created is the daily affirmation that anything we imagine can be made real. It’s the unboundedness, the belief in the impossible.

Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark: Hair by Patrick Wilson for Oribe at the Wall Group; makeup by Tobi Henney for Mac Cosmetics at the Wall Group. On-set grooming for all talent: Gor Duryan at Agence Saint Germain Paris. Produced by Cinq Étoiles Productions; producer: Lucas Lechevalier; production manager: Jonathan Arapis; first photo assistant: Felipe Chaves; postproduction: Louwre Erasmus at Quickfix; fashion assistant: Mei Ling Cooper; production assistant: Louisa Kocher; tailor: Charline Gentilhomme at the Tailor Team.