Paris Fashion Week

Paris Fashion Week (French: Semaine de la mode de Paris, commonly [la] Fashion Week) is a series of designer presentations held semi-annually in Paris, France, with spring/summer and autumn/winter events held each year. Dates are determined by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. Paris Fashion Week is held at venues throughout the city. It is one of the "Big Four" fashion weeks alongside New York, Milan, and London.

In addition to ready-to-wear shows, there are men's and haute couture shows; these are held semiannually for the spring/summer and autumn/winter seasons. The haute couture collections are always presented and exhibited before the ready-to-wear collections, with there being a total of a little over 100 collections each season. Also, every year, famous brands like Dior, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Kenzo, Givenchy, and Céline host their shows in historical places such as the Carrousel du Louvre and the Grand Palais.

In order to participate, the houses must fulfill the criteria that are set in place by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, such as a requirement of 35 looks per year that need to include day and evening wear. Only a few houses are able to fulfill this requirement; therefore, this leaves few to participate in haute couture fashion shows. Since there are only a few spots left for those to participate, there are the well-known high-end fashion brands like Chanel and Alexander Mcqueen, but also the lesser-known ones like Maxime Simöens and Eymele Burgaud.

Paris Fashion Week is part of the global "Big 4" fashion weeks, the others being London Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week. The schedule begins with New York, followed by London, and then Milan and ends in Paris. New York was the first city to hold a "fashion week".

Although the first fashion week was held in New York, the event itself derives from "salon shows" ("défilés de mode" in French, literally "fashion parades") in Paris couture salons.

A fashion week consists of a week of organized events of multiple designer's collections. Before this organized event was recognized in New York City, fashion showings were being held in Paris as early as the 1700s. Some earlier showings were presented on mannequins, which made it difficult for clients to see fashion pieces fully since the mannequin didn't have the same mobility a model did. These early showings were only to clients purchasing items and were shown on mannequins. In the 1800s, showings began to change. Charles Frederick Worth, noted for haute couture, began showing multiple pieces together and of a higher design. These designs were showcased to get the customer's attention in buying the pieces. Jeanne Paquin is the first designer to make her showings public and Paul Poiret is the first to host parties after his events.

In the mid 1800s, Mme Pauline von Metternich, an Austrian Princess and wife to the Ambassador of Paris, saw one of Worth's sketches and employed him to make her a gown. He gained much recognition through his powerful clients and opened his own haute couture house in Paris in 1858, which sold luxury fashion to upper-class women.

In 1868 the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture was created to set the specifications to determine what constituted a 'couture house'. The group decided that to be defined a piece of haute couture the clothing must have been; custom-made to fit the wearer, hand-sewn by multiple skilled artisans in the separate fields of embroidery, stitching, and beading, and only the most high quality of materials may be used.