Fashion’s highest expression of creativity and culture – Paris couture week – kicks off Monday with a bumper display of great brands; two couturier debuts and scores of ancillary accessories and jewelry events.

The world of elegance and style will be fixated by the season, so much so that even before a single stitch of couture has been delivered, the worldwide media impact is estimated at €200 million. 

Many nations have some soft power but only France boasts the delicious dominance of couture. It’s a term, like champagne, that can only be only be used about high fashion when it’s presented in France. 

A season that kicks off with Schiaparelli and ends with Germanier, the power-pop sustainable glamour of couture’s most forward-thinking new couturier – Swiss-born Kevin Germanier.
 
In between are two major debuts: Alessandro Michele at Valentino and Ludovic de Saint Sernin, this season’s guest at Jean-Paul Gaultier.
 
The classic elegant white invitations have already reached senior editors and VIPs. Though Schiaparelli’s Daniel Roseberry sent out a gold metal leaf; and Michele, typically idiosyncratically, messengered over a pale blue box reading “Vertigineux,” inside of which were three almond soaps. Seeing as vertigineux means giddy in French, it’s an inkling of what to expect.
 
Entrance on the official calendar is governed by the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FCHM). They are preciously guarded slots and notoriously difficult to obtain. Designers can spend years showing couture in Paris without ever being. Accepted, though the FCHM does filter in one or two fresh faces each season – this month they are Germanier and Miss Sohee. FHCM executive president Pascal Morand outlines couture’s broader impact below.
 
Though the shows are far more intimate than the massive catwalk extravaganzas during ready-to-wear season, the traffic jams are worse. Since flotillas of 500 limousines tour Paris to the greatest couture shows with VIPs and what are now known as TWAGS (trillionaires’ wives and girlfriends). Scores of non-calendar designers and high jewelry businesses also put on displays.
 
Above all, it is the unique display of the great laboratory of high fashion in some of Paris’ most beautiful buildings. Chanel monopolizes the Grand Palais; Schiaparelli is across the street in the Petit Palais; Dior presents in the Rodin Museum and will unveil its latest ideas inside its very own mansion on Rue Francois Premier. 
 
Those four shows, in particular, always attract the largest contingent of bona fide movie stars. Their mission: find and reserve a unique couture look to wear to the Oscars on March 5 in Los Angeles. The ultimate dream – dress the Best Actress winner.
 

Few people are better prepared to explain the season than FHCM executive president, Pascal Morand. Here is his vision of what to expect, in the most vertiginous week on the fashion calendar.
 
Fashion Network: What are you most excited about in this coming couture season?
Pascal Morand: Haute couture expresses not only a great tradition, but also the osmosis between creation and savoir-faire, achieved at the highest level by houses. Haute couture week is a place of great creative and international diversity, with brilliant young designers emerging on this scene. All of which makes it very appealing and stimulating.  
 
FN: How do you balance the needs of the great French fashion houses, with the necessity of developing new couture talent?
PM: Haute couture week is precisely the moment when the balance between the most established and well-known houses, and emerging designers is realized. The official calendar gathers haute couture houses, international corresponding members and guests. The haute couture committee ensures this balance and selects a small number of newcomers as guests. This season we welcome Germanier and Miss Sohee.
 
FN: What do you estimate as the financial impact of couture in Paris? 
PM: The economic and financial impact of haute couture is multifaceted. For the houses themselves, it represents an essential activity, a symbol of great know-how carried by the ateliers and a major driving force. It brings together, alongside the creative communities, a scope of professions and artisans, for whom the quality of savoir-faire is crucial, as with the métiers d’art. It also expresses the very particular care given to clients from all over the world. Furthermore, the importance attached in present-day world to personalization, uniqueness and savoir-faire stimulates emerging brands and incites them to choose haute couture as a tangible vector of economic development.
 
FN: Its impact on the French economy? 
PM: All of the above points lead to the vitality of haute couture week, a French singularity whose impact keeps on increasing. This can be measured by estimates of earned media value, in particular the media impact value calculated by Launchmetrics, which has multiplied by three over the last three years, reaching around $200m for the last season.
 
FN: Its impact on French or international culture?
 
PM: Haute couture is a hallmark of Frenchness. It conveys an image of culture and refinement. It is testament to the fact that the intelligence of the hand embodies modernity just as much as the most seasoned technological innovation, with which it can also be associated. It is a reference point for designers from all over the world, who draw on their culture and traditions in a creative drive that blossoms in Paris.