Every year on or around 25 November the French fashion industry organizes a kind of catwalk show exactly for itself. Wearing mostly green and yellow hats-the color combination would represent family and hope or faith and wisdom, depending on which Milliner you ask-young people from the Parisian luxury houses gather in the town hall to celebrate St. Catherine’s Day, a Catholic Holiday from the Middle Ages that was first observed by the couture industry in the late 19th century. Historically, the Catherinettes, as they are well-known women, were given every 25 years old and worked in one of the then dead of Haute Couture Ateliers of the city-a rare opportunity to meet their bosses before they have the rest of the day To enjoy street parties, while they all wear lush, often flashy hats that were sometimes personalized to represent their individual skills or interests, or at least the codes of their home. (In the late 1940s, the Catherinettes of Schiaparelli oversized versions of the surreal scent bottles of the designer Elsa Schiaaparelli in the form of suns and candlesticks. Message: Sent a clear message: “I am available,” says Sophie Kurkdjian, a assistant professor of fashion history at American University of Paris. “And I’m looking for a husband.” She compares the tradition with Tinder for the Petites MainsOr ‘small hands’, as the general anonymous artisans who are responsible for sewing and embroidering the world’s most excellent dresses are known.
The patron saint of the Catherinettes is Catherine van Alexandria, a competent debater who died in the fourth century and who, according to legend, converted pagan scholars to Christianity and refused to marry a Roman emperor. (She is also supposed to watch over scientists and students.) But more than a mating ritual, however – one that was practiced throughout France long before it was hired by the fashion industry – St. Catherine’s Day was also a “bonding – Experience, “says Pamela Golbin, formerly the main curator of fashion and textile in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. “Today it would be considered a team building exercise.” Men from the houses eventually adopted a parallel tradition in honor of St. Nicholas, another patron saint of many, including those who want to get married, who once paid the downs for three unmarried sisters by secretly throwing gold in their house in their house father. They celebrated on St. Nicholas’s Feast Day, December 6, and enjoyed five extra years of shame -free singlingom and became nicholases at 30.
Two years ago, the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the administrative body of the Paris Fashion Week, which had long heard complaints about the ‘antifeminism’ of the holiday, decided that participants no longer had to be unmarried, says the Executive President, Pascal Morand. It also reduced the age for nicholases to 25. The control change influenced people such as Victor Weinsanto, a 30-year-old French designer who started his own label in 2020 and now missed his chance to be held as Nicholas. He had appreciated the tradition since his internship at Chloé, where he had seen Catherinettes with their hats. (Together with the hats that participants can retain, offer many extra gifts: Balenciaga offers full outfits, for example.) Nevertheless, Weinsanto still enjoys the spectacle of a distance. “It is a time when you can have some freedom about taste,” he says, reminding of the large feathered hats that were worn last November by employees of Hermès, a brand that is not best known for its flamboyance.
In the town hall, the participants – about 400, have dressed many in black, who represented both 17 houses and the federation themselves – their colorful hats in a private fashion show, where each brand has chosen its own music. (Hermès opted for the “espresso” of Sabrina Carpenter; Patou went with a Lil Wayne -song.) For a competitive industry that generally takes quite seriously, the event is a Goofy Anomalie and rare moment of unity. And yet the ceremony is not without a bit of benign one-upmanship: the hats of the Catherinettes are often designed by the creative director of the house, but some partygoers in the town hall had added personal details; An employee of the Millinery Maison Michel has applied a wooden bet to them to display their passion for the TV series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. Others confirmed stones or Chanel logos felt their hats, in the same way as American students could adjust their graduation caps.
The Catherinettes and Nicholases, who now both celebrate in November, no longer only come from the world of Couture, which means that employees of one of the 100 houses in the federation can participate. (Nowadays only 14 of those corn still make haute couture: adapted items of clothing that are produced completely by hand and require at least four full -time tailors and seamstresses.) Neither do they have to make clothing at all. Among the 23 participants of Balenciaga last year there were employees from the stores and business departments. (The brand, known for its subversion and streetwear, dressed his staff in black baseball caps, designed by his creative director, Demna, with green and yellow on the Brims.) Delphine Bellini, the Chief Executive of Schiaparelli, sees it as a moment ” Pass the baton between the senior experts and the young talents “and an opportunity to impress the next generation of the company, the importance of craftsmanship. “I have to admit that I would rather represent the modern interpretations of tradition than the old” Holiday throws the house, throws a lush ball for his team – not just a company occupation, but an extravagant cocktail party attended by his creative directors, along with Delphine Arnault, the Chief Executive of Dior Fashion, and her father, Bernard Arnault, the Chief, the Chief Executive of Dior’s parent company, LVMH. (Everyone at Dior will receive the next Monday.)
“It is our most important encounter of the year,” says the British Milliner Stephen Jones, who heard about the Catherinettes when he was hired in Dior in 1996. He acknowledges some mystery about tradition – outside of New Orleans, who organizes a small neighborhood hat, who organizes a small neighborhood hat Parade to recognize the Day of St. Catherine, the celebration is unknown to most Americans, even those who work in fashion . Several houses and designers were reluctant to say too much about the habit – almost like it was a secret. “Some things are meant to be kept private,” says Jones. “If you buy a Dior Haute Couture dress, what do you buy? You buy a dress, but you also buy privacy – something that is alone for you, not nobody else. “For him, the event is about the Pride Fashion takes his craftsmen: the hats he designed for this year’s event, inspired by the Collection 2025 collection of the brand, were made by the Scottish knitted manufacturer Robert Mackie.” In the United States they celebrate sports heroes or military heroes, “says Jones.” In France they celebrate tailors and fashion design. “
