Couture

Looks like hiring Raf Simons was a really, really good business decision. Christian Dior recently announced that sales of its couture collections in 2012 were up some 24 percent over the previous year.

But it's not just the garments from Simons's debut Fall 2012 Couture collection, or Bill Gaytten's Spring 2012 Couture collection — which was well received — that experienced such high sales. Dior's various product ranges saw worldwide sales of €1.24 billion last year, or about $1.59 billion at current exchange. It amounts to a 17 percent growth in sales year over year. (It's worth noting that in 2011, the year John Galliano was dismissed from the brand, Dior's sales broke the $1 billion mark for the first time in its history.)

"These results reaffirm the exceptional quality of Dior's products and the powerful appeal of its stores," the company said in a statement.

That's not all those figures indicate. By and large, they say that the customer base for couture is growing — and that it isn't afraid to spend. Chanel's couturier Karl Lagerfeld told The New York Times recently that clients have sent their private planes to Paris to pick up his couture tailors. And in addition to New York, those planes now also come from nations with rapidly expanding or robust economies like China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. In late 2011, Reuters reported that women in the Middle East were the world's biggest consumers of couture.

Then, too, there's Simons's desire to "change the psychology of people who are interested in couture." In an interview about his first couture collection for Dior, Simons said he wanted "to make it more dynamic, appeal to a person who has a different energy. A younger person, in mind, not necessarily in age."

Has he succeeded? His talent for making clothing a variety of women want to wear — and are willing to pay for — is clearly making a big difference at Dior.

Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.

• Givenchy won't stage a Couture Week show for the press in January but still plans to see private clients. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, Tom Ford has publicly listed his next show on the London Fashion Week schedule for February. [Grazia]
• Some of the 24 contestants on The Face are already working models with big clients like Tory Burch, Christian Louboutin, Target, and Forever 21. [Oxygen]
• The CFDA has raised $1.7 million to benefit the Hurricane Sandy relief effort. All of the proceeds will be donated to local charities. [CFDA]
• Ecommerce success stories like Bonobos and Warby Parker are opening up physical stores in response to their customers' desire to try garments on before they buy them. [On the Runway]
• Elsewhere in retail, the iconic French store Galeries Lafayette is rumored to be interested in buying its equally iconic next-door neighbor, Printemps. [WWD]
• Roland Mouret will curate an exhibition of Norman Parkinson's photography for the Bath in Fashion festival this April. [Vogue UK]
• Political insiders say Anna Wintour is "open" to becoming the United States ambassador to France. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• DJ Kiss, who's spun records at parties for Diane von Furstenberg and Alexander Wang, is the latest musical talent to sign with Wilhelmina Models Artist Management. [Page Six]
• Who owns Saturday? After a few weeks of legal volleys, Kate Spade has asked a New York court to declare that its new label Kate Spade Saturday does not infringe on the trademark of the menswear line Saturdays Surf NYC. [WWD]
• Jason Wu says his new line Miss Wu is for a girl who's a "little more worn in, a little grittier, her hair is a little messier, her makeup might be from the night before." [Fashionista]

Photo courtesy of Givenchy.

Hedi Slimane says that restarting the couture collection at Saint Laurent Paris — which hasn't been shown since the house's founder Yves Saint Laurent retired in 2002 — is within the realm of possibility.

"Haute couture is a legitimate subject for Yves Saint Laurent and could resume one day," Slimane said in an interview for the August issue of Vogue Paris. "The priority today is to revamp and redeploy the luxury ready-to-wear."

Slimane, who had never designed women's clothing before he created the Resort 2013 collection for Saint Laurent Paris, says he'll accomplish this redeployment through his vision of the Saint Laurent woman. "I approach this via a wardrobe codified to the extreme, almost ritualistic," he said.

Raf Simons says the focus of his first collection for Christian Dior was to "change the psychology of people who are interested in couture."

Simons may have accomplished that goal: the reviews of the show have been universally positive, and many noted that Simons's work might cause a shift in the way couture is viewed. Cathy Horyn said Simons "gets the most and the best out of couture," while Tim Blanks observed that the designer "can't help himself; he will bring a heart-on-his-sleeve human dimension to this remote and rarefied world."

As Simons later explained to Blanks, he's doing that by re-imagining the possibilities and limits of the couture customer.

"I want to make it more dynamic, appeal to a person who has a different energy," he said. "A younger person, in mind, not necessarily in age. And I think couture is very much about curating something unique for women. Fashion is so mass-produced now; I hope there will come a refocus on how people see couture. And I would also hope for a new focus on the craft. . . . It's mind-blowing when you start investigating what is done here. But I want to approach it with a new energy. I'm interested to see how people will pick up on it."