Ready-to-wear

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Ready to wear)
Jump to: navigation, search
"Prêt-à-Porter" redirects here. For the movie Prêt-à-Porter (English title: Ready to Wear), see Prêt-à-Porter (film).

Ready-to-wear or prêt-à-porter is the fashion design term for clothing marketed in a finished condition, in standard clothing sizes (in casual usage, off the rack or "off-the-peg"). Some fashion houses or fashion designers create ready-to-wear lines that are mass-produced and industrially manufactured, while others offer lines that are very exclusive and produced only in limited numbers and only for a limited time. Whatever the quantity produced, these lines are never one of a kind.

The antithesis of ready-to-wear is different depending on whether it concerns women's or men's fashion. In women's fashion high-end clothing made partly incorporating features requested by the client and to her exacting measurements is called haute couture. In menswear, it is usually called bespoke. Savile Row is a famous district in London legendary for its bespoke tailoring, but Naples, Rome and Milan are also famous for their ultra exclusive bespoke tailors. Some high end makers of exclusive men's ready-to-wear clothing such as Kiton, Oxxford Clothes, and Cesare Attolini also provide a bespoke service. Some makers of exclusive high-end ready-to-wear men's shoes (most famously John Lobb London) also make bespoke shoes on lasts custom made to fit the wearer's foot exactly, with premium leathers and high-end construction methods. Charvet in Paris is an example of a famous men's shirtmaker which offers both a high-end ready-to-wear as well as bespoke service.

Fashion houses that produce a women's haute couture line, such as Chanel, Dior, and Lacroix or Torrente by Julien Fournié, also produce a ready-to-wear line, which returns a greater profit due to the higher volume turnover of garments and greater availability of the clothing. Relative to couture, ready-to-wear clothing is often more practical and informal, though this may not always be the case. The construction of ready-to-wear clothing is also held to different standard than that of haute couture due to its industrial nature. High-end ready-to-wear lines are sometimes based upon a famous gown or pattern that is then duplicated to raise the designer's visibility level.

Ready-to-wear collections are usually presented by fashionable couture houses each season during a period known as Fashion Week. This takes place on a city-wide basis and occurs twice per year. Collections for autumn/winter are shown early in the year, usually around February, and spring/summer collections are shown around September. Ready-to-wear fashion weeks occur separately and earlier than those of haute couture. Paris, New York, London and Milan are home to the world's most famed fashion weeks, but many other major cities such as Los Angeles and Tokyo hold Fashion Weeks that are both highly-anticipated and well-publicised. Many couture houses also present menswear at fashion shows, but the more high-end exclusive men's ready-to-wear makers such as Kiton, Brioni, Cesare Attolini, and Borrelli largely eschew this practice and instead concentrate on use intricate handwork and ultrafine fabrics along with their exclusivity to promote themselves. The end result is a ready-to-wear suit that costs as much or more than many independent tailors charge for a full bespoke suit.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.