Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode

Seeks to promote French fashion culture

Summary

The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode brings together fashion brands that  seek to promote French fashion culture, particularly Haute Couture by combining traditional textile craft with modern technology. It also contributes to bolstering Paris as a world fashion capital, in particular, through the bi-annual Paris Fashion Week.

Vision

To promote French fashion culture

Mission Statement

To set the specifications to decide what constituted a ‘couture house’ since Haute Couture is a much misused phrase.

Services

Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode is the regulating commission that determines which fashion design houses are eligible to be haute couture houses. It presides over three associations, couture, womenswear and menswear. In official terms these are the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture; the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode; and the Chambre Syndicale de la Mode Masculine. The Fédération coordinates and enhances Paris Fashion Week and its offshoots, including the official calendar of shows and presentations bringing together over 150 brands with recognized uniqueness. Brand applications are examined by a selection committee that guarantees the quality and diversity that are specific to Paris Fashion Week.

The Fédération educates its members, including powerhouse fashion brands, to promote French fashion culture where Haute Couture has a major impact by combining traditional textile craft and contemporary technology at all times, and contributes to bolstering Paris as world fashion capital. During the pandemic that fractured the global fashion industry, the Board of Directors of the Fédération de la haute couture et de la Mode announced that Paris men’s fashion week and Haute Couture Week would not take place. “The Federation is actively working with its members on possible alternatives,” the group said in a statement.

Skills are the core of the Federation. Deeply invested in creation, committed to companies and acting globally, it encouraged the strategic partnership between schools that influenced fashion in their own way. The ECSCP have embodied French excellence since 1927 and the IFM has been a pioneer in fashion management degree since 1986. Today, their union offers Paris a new school to shape fresh fashion talent. “The union of the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale et de l’IFM provides Paris with a school whose ambition is to establish itself as the best fashion school in the world, relying on a unique trio, management, technics and creation, ranging from CAP to Thesis, including Bachelor and Master Degree, settled in a new innovative and open site, actively promoting social diversity, and at the forefront in terms of technologies and sustainable development” stated Ralph Toledano, President, Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode.

As a core element of an ecosystem resolutely geared towards the future, the Federation lies at the heart of the fashion industry’s changes and challenges. It provides members with a range of services in the sphere of legal, social, economic, technological, marketing and communication through dedicated commissions, ad hoc task forces or individual appointments with fashion brands. It actively takes part in the expansion of the French ecosystem by providing emerging fashion brands with financial and organisational support, and the overall expertise they need to structure and ease their development and exposure.The support to emerging brands is one of the key missions of the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. It supports their development before and after their entry in the official calendars and contributes to increasing their visibility within an institutional, commercial, technologic and media network. The Fédération also organises a showroom, Designers Apartment, with the backing of the DEFI, a committee for the promotion and advancement of clothing industries. And, to remain relevant today, it has a digital platform ‘New Now’.

Key Team

Currently, the Committee is composed of:
Bruno Pavlovsky, President of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (President of Fashion, Chanel)
Pascal Morand, Executive President of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode
Francesca Bellettini (President and CEO, Saint Laurent)
Anouck Duranteau-Loeper, President of the Chambre Syndicale de la Mode Féminine (CEO, Isabel Marant)
Elsa Lanzo, President of the Chambre Syndicale de la Mode Masculine (CEO, Rick Owens)
Guillaume de Seynes (Executive Vice-President Manufacturing Division and Equity Investments, Hermès)
Sidney Toledano (Chairman and CEO, LVMH Fashion Group)

References

  1. https://fhcm.paris/en/
  2. https://fashionunited.com/news/fashion/french-fashion-federation-gets-re-branded/2017063016393
  3. https://hautecouture.fhcm.paris/en/calendar-spring-summer-2022/
  4. https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/ackermann-s-gaultier-debut-and-balenciaga-is-absent-in-haute-couture-week-calendar/
  5. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/luxury/paris-fashion-week-mens-and-couture-cancelled/
  6. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ifm-executive-director-sylvie-ebel.html
  7. https://www.vogue.in/fashion/content/just-in-gaurav-gupta-is-officially-an-haute-couture-designer
  8. https://www.dn-mag.com/fhcm-federation-de-la-haute-couture-et-de-la-mode/
  9. https://fashionunited.in/news/fashion/paris-fashion-week-men-s-returns-to-fully-physical-calendar/
  10. https://fashionnetwork.com/news/Bruno-pavlovsky-elected-president-of-the-federation-de-la-haute-couture-et-de-la-mode.html