高级定制大回潮：Versace、Hermès 相继回归，奢侈品牌为何重新押注手工高定？

This week, Versace announced that it was bringing Atelier Versace back to the runway. The brand will return to the haute couture schedule in January 2027 for what will be Pieter Mulier’s first full runway show as the brand’s creative director. The Italian label, which was acquired by Prada Group in late 2025 in a deal worth approximately €1.25 billion, has not shown couture since 2016 (though it has operated behind closed doors amid its runway hiatus).

Versace is not alone. Many brands have turned their attention to couture shows over the past few years: Hermès will debut couture in January 2027, while Balenciaga returned to the couture schedule in July 2021 for the first time since 1968. Celine’s CEO recently told Vogue Business that the maison was working on developing couture after a “strong appetite from American clientele”, while Indian couturier Gaurav Gupta this month opened his first permanent couture atelier in Paris. What’s driving the boom?

Neil Saunders, managing director and retail analyst at Globaldata, says that couture shows can help luxury houses “bring back a sense of elusiveness” of their offerings, since social media, high-low collabs and entry-level products made them culturally ubiquitous. “There’s a fine balance here: commercially, bringing in more customers is helpful, but it can also dilute the cachet of a luxury brand,” Saunders says. “Couture can be a counterbalance to that, it throws a halo around a label.”

As the luxury market faces increasing competition across price points, “heritage luxury brands need to proactively maintain their cultural resonance and multi-generational appeal,” says Marissa Lepor, managing director at The Sage Group, an investment bank with expertise in branded consumer M&A. “Hermès and Versace each have extensive archives and rich design histories that transcend trends and appeal to customers globally, which will likely inspire their upcoming shows,” she adds.

The VIC squeeze

Couture is not known for its profitability. The business model is based on making a very small quantity of extremely labor-intensive clothing for ultra-wealthy clients that number, at most, a few thousand. That clientele, however, is becoming more important. According to a report from Bain released last year, the top-spending consumers (known as very important clients, or VICs) account for 2% of the total customer base, despite comprising 45% of global luxury purchases, up from 35% in 2021.

“Luxury has spent the last few years raising prices without giving shoppers much new in return,” says Krista Corrigan, senior analyst at retail intelligence platform EDITED. Because each couture piece is handmade and fitted to a single client, it provides a way for brands to justify a higher price tag. “Couture is the clearest way for a house to show where the money goes.”

Mimma Viglezio, the London-based luxury brand strategist who’s held positions at major fashion houses including Louis Vuitton, Bvlgari and Gucci, says it tracks that brands would court the highest-spending demographic. “The rich are so rich that they want stuff that nobody else can afford,” she says, also pointing to the boom in fine jewelry. “We now have necklaces for $1 million-plus selling like hot bread. I think couture is an opportunity for brands like Hermès to cater to their top tier, because it makes up much of their annual revenue anyway. They’re giving them a gift in a way.”

Alexis Mabille, who has been an official fixture on the Paris haute couture schedule since 2012, says that while couture historically attracts faithful clients, whose families have often purchased couture for generations, in recent years there’s emerged a wealthy clientele who is, as he puts it, “fed up with the baseness of ready-to-wear.” They want a “special experience”.

Saunders says this “tiering” of the luxury sector is significant. “Luxury used to be a bit homogenous, now it is splintered,” he says, adding that it also speaks to the inherent virtue of craftsmanship. “What luxury doesn’t want to convey is that its products are mass produced — that sucks the glamour and magic away. Couture can be a signal that emphasizes the craft of fashion.”

The pinnacle of fashion (marketing)

Increasing appeal to the ultra-wealthy is only part of the story. Because haute couture is generally regarded as the highest form of artistic expression in fashion, experts agree that it serves as an excellent marketing exercise — selling the fantasy to an audience far beyond the 1%. Take John Galliano’s Margiela Artisanal 2024 show, which parent group OTB said had a major halo effect on the brand as a whole. “Couture alone won’t move revenue much, but its job is to make everything else in the store easier to sell at full price,” says Corrigan.

The shift is particularly clear at Versace. According to data from EDITED, the proportion of discounted apparel in June, July and August fell from 42% in 2024 to 33% in 2026. Meanwhile, 47% of its apparel in October was priced above $1,000, up from 35% two years earlier. Corrigan adds that fewer markdowns and fewer entry-price products suggest Versace is pulling back from discounting and cleaning up its pricing strategy.

“Atelier Versace is going to be a gateway to celebrity culture, red carpet dressing, the Met Gala, and all these pop culture moments that made Versace so popular,” says Dubai-based fashion commentator Osama Chabbi. “The strong, playful storefront that’s going to attract clients with smaller budgets to shop their ready-to-wear.”

Because couture can read as a relic of a bygone era, it’s also crucial for designers to appeal to a younger audience and find other ways to delight clients. “A major challenge is keeping haute couture cool and contemporary, in step with our times, even when it comes to an evening gown,” says Mabille, who last season innovated dresses that could transform into double looks — black on one side; gold or fuchsia on the other.

For a brand like Hermès, traditionally known for understatement rather than red carpet dressing, the rationale is less obvious. A spokesperson for the brand told Vogue Business that it was not currently commenting on couture ahead of the show. Still, experts see an opportunity for Hermès to emphasize its commitment to craftsmanship while reaching a younger audience online. “It [represents] huge marketing around the name, and Hermès definitely needs it for young people, because [the brand] is not really on their radar,” says Viglezio. “And if they do an astonishing couture, they might become visible on their screens.”

“We also know that some of the super rich who are shopping Hermès bags also do have the budget to shop couture,” adds Chabbi. “It’s a two birds, one stone situation.”

The future of couture

The couture market isn't booming across the board. Giambattista Valli canceled its January couture show at the last minute after a review of its operations; it decided not to hold the show “to ensure the company’s sustainability”. Valentino, meanwhile, has slimmed down its couture shows to only once a year to cut costs (Balenciaga also shows couture annually, much like Margiela).

“It is a very hard business because it demands a lot of labor and skill, but the volumes are incredibly small and it is hard to scale,” says Saunders. To succeed from a commercial perspective, couture requires a small but very loyal customer base while also working to burnish the brand’s image. “Couture might not be a money-spinner directly, but it may have a very positive impact on sales of regular products, or on how a brand is perceived.” In this sense, it can also be viewed as a marketing expense, but, as Saunders says, “only the very premium brands will find this worthwhile.”

Lepor similarly sees couture as a long-term investment in brand value. “The artistry and creativity of couture can inspire customers and enthusiasts to covet a brand, cultivating lasting admiration across generations,” she says. “Investing in couture is not a short-term play, it’s a long-term strategy that can drive sales across verticals and broader brand loyalty over time.”

Couture shows, she adds, are just as much for brand enthusiasts as for existing clients, reinforcing a brand’s vision and artistry even when the collections are not profitable in their own right.

Ultimately, the renewed focus on couture may be less about a fundamental market shift than a way for brands to extend their reach — whether to clients spending private jet money on bespoke gowns, to shoppers saving up to buy a shirt off the rack after being enchanted by the spectacle. As Chabbi puts it: “There’ll always be rich people the same way there’ll always be red carpets. It’s just the way it operates.”