How do you recognize what gives a design its couture quality—and how do you translate that into your own practice?

During the Paris Couture Experience in October, the workshops, exhibitions, and material visits together form a single investigation.

You can look at couture in Paris and be primarily impressed. By the embroidery, the fabrics, the construction, and the many hours of handwork that have gone into a single garment.

But looking only becomes truly valuable when you learn to see better.

Why does a hem drape so beautifully? What makes a closure almost disappear? Why does a silhouette remain calm, even when a lot of technique is involved? And what choices ensure that a garment not only looks refined but is also comfortable to wear and stays beautiful?

That is what we will be working on during the workshops of the Paris Couture Experience in October.

Couture is more than mastering a technique

A key topic will be how to integrate couture practice into your own work.

By this, I don’t mean that every garment must be made entirely by hand. Nor do you suddenly have to start working in the same way as a Parisian couture house. It’s about learning to choose where extra attention, a different construction, or a more careful finish truly makes a difference.

Perhaps you work as a designer or tailor for private clients. Perhaps you are developing your own collection. Or perhaps you want to take your work to a more professional level and are looking for what can make your work distinctive.

Then the important question is not: How can I use as many couture techniques as possible?

The better question is: Where does a couture approach add value to this design, for this wearer, and for this use?

That consideration changes not only how you make something. It also changes how you design, look at materials, assess quality, and explain your choices to a client.

Couture finishes: seeing, understanding, and practicing

In addition to this broader translation to your own practice, we will work very concretely on various couture finishes.

A good finish is more than the final step after a garment has been assembled. In couture, the desired finish is often already incorporated into the design, the choice of material, and the construction. The inside and outside are not two separate worlds.

During the workshops, we look at various ways in which edges, hems, seams, and other details can be finished. We discuss not only how to create a finish, but also:

• when it is suitable;
• what the material requires of you;
• what the finish does to weight, suppleness, and wearing comfort;
• how much time and precision are required;
• and when a simpler solution is actually better.

We will also practice a number of finishes ourselves. Because only when you perform a technique with your own hands do you feel what is actually happening. You notice how much tension a fabric can withstand, how precise your stitches must be, and why the order of work makes a difference.

The goal is not to take home a collection of perfect samples after one workshop. The goal is for you to understand what you are doing and know how to further develop and apply it.

Paris becomes our extended classroom

The workshops are not separate from the rest of the program.

When we visit exhibitions, we therefore do not only look at the final image. We also pay attention to construction, material use, volume, rhythm, proportion, and finish. Where possible, we investigate how a certain effect was achieved. What do you see on the outside? And what can you deduce from that about the internal structure?

Also while visiting suppliers and specialized shops, I will specifically point out elements that make a couture finish possible or easier.

A refined result does not start with sewing. It starts with recognizing quality in fabric, lining, notions, thread, reinforcement, and appliqués. Sometimes a small difference in material makes the work more complicated. Sometimes exactly the right choice makes a finish quieter, lighter, and more convincing.

This creates a continuous thread throughout the journey:

we look, we analyze, we practice, and we translate.

What do you take back to your own work?

The most important takeaway is not that you try to copy what you have seen after Paris.

You return with a sharper eye and a larger repertoire of possibilities. You can better judge which finish suits a design, where extra handwork creates value, and where it would mostly cost unnecessary time. You see sooner which materials support your idea. And you can make more conscious choices about the level at which you want to work and the value you create for a client.

To me, that is the true meaning of couture practice: not doing more for the sake of doing more, but perceiving more precisely and choosing more purposefully.

A couture finish does not have to be loudly present. Often it is precisely a detail that a client can hardly point out, but does experience. In how a garment drapes. How it feels. How calm it looks. And how naturally it seems to be right.

Paris Couture Experience — October 12 to 16, 2026

The Paris Couture Experience is intended for fashion professionals and makers who want to develop (further) professionally and people who want to take their textile work to a higher level.

In five days, we combine workshops with carefully chosen visits to exhibitions, specialized suppliers, and places where Parisian savoir-faire is still visible and tangible. The program is not an ordinary inspiration trip. Everything we look at, we connect to the question of what quality can mean in your own work.

Would you like to know if this trip aligns with your experience and ambitions? Please feel free to send me an email at sa****@************le.nl

Registration is open until September 25, 2026. There are two places remaining.