Who are couture's biggest clients?

According to a story we spotted on Reuters this morning, the answer appears to be women from oil-rich Gulf countries. ‘Their social calendar, which usually consists of 15-20 weddings a year and private parties every month, creates much bigger demand for couture than the occasional charity ball and high society party in Europe and in North America,’ the news agency reported.

European couture houses have apparently come to rely on Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari and UAE-based clients.

‘All the royal families of the Middle East are our customers,’ Catherine Riviere, head of haute couture at Christian Dior, told Reuters.

Jeffrey Aronsson, the new CEO of Emanuel Ungaro, echoed Riviere: ‘Women from the Middle East are our top buyers and they are likely to remain so.’ And Hermes CEO Patrick Thomas said that Middle Eastern customers account for 30-35% of the company’s annual sales.

We’re wary of some of the generalisations and muddled facts in the story (Ungaro and Hermes don’t have couture arms), but it does contain intriguing nuggets. For instance, the division at most Gulf weddings of men and women into different rooms makes fashion choices less a matter of appearing attractive to the opposite sex than a signifier of social status between women.

‘What I want is unique pieces, extravagant and chic. I do not want to pay 5,000 or 6,000 euros for a dress, as it happened to me with a Pucci outfit recently, and see it on somebody else the same evening,’ one client who buys 30-40 designer gowns per year told the reporter.

Design houses including