Chambre Adding Jewelry to Haute Couture Mix

The Chambre Syndicale, French fashion’s governing body, plans to add even more sparkle to next season’s Paris haute couture week.

The Chambre has officially invited seven major jewelers - Boucheron, Cartier, Chanel Joaillerie, Chaumet, Christian Dior Joaillerie, Mellerio and Van Cleef & Arpels - to present their latest creations during a special by-appointment-only day on Thursday, January 28, 2010.

The next haute couture season is scheduled to run from January 25 to January 28, 2010 and will feature catwalk shows by luxury brands such as Giorgio Armani, Givenchy, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Valentino, plus catwalk fashion displays by Chanel and Dior.

“Haute couture and high jewelry, unique window of exclusivity, absolute unification of technical know-how, will together celebrate talent and the exceptional in this coming luxury week,” the 140-year-old Chambre said in a news release.

The move marks the latest step by the Chambre to use couture’s unique position in fashion, the pinnacle of the style pyramid when it comes to creativity and rarity, whose show week is staged during a traditionally quiet global news week when Paris lures all the world’s major fashion editors and critics. Though boasting only 30 official and unofficial runway shows, the four-day season generates nearly as many editorial pages as the ready-to-wear season of New York, which features some 150 shows.

In a separate move, the management committee of Chambre syndicale voted to add the fashion house of Josephus Thimister to the calendar of the January couture season.

The witty and loquacious Thimister is a long-time resident of Paris whom, during a distinguished career, has done stints as creative director of Balenciaga and Charles Jourdan and as designer of Italian label Genny.

A graduate of the famed Antwerp art and fashion school, the Dutch-born Thimister began his career as an assistant of Karl Lagerfeld, before burnishing a reputation for chic, austere knits and subtly cut clothes in his favorite color mix – black and white. The news marks a return to the Paris catwalk by Thimister, who has not staged his signature collection on a runway since the beginning of the century.

The three key groupings in the Chambre Syndicale - haute couture, women’s ready-to-wear and men’s wear - have a total of about 100 members.

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