Every year on or around the 25th of November, the French fashion industry hosts a kind of runway show just for itself. Wearing mostly green-and-yellow hats, young people from the Parisian luxury houses gather at City Hall to celebrate St. Catherine’s Day, a Catholic holiday dating to the Middle Ages that was first observed by the couture industry in the late 19th century. Historically, the Catherinettes, single women, each 25 years old and working in one of the city’s then-dozens of haute couture ateliers, were granted a rare opportunity to meet their bosses before getting the rest of the day off to enjoy street parties, all while wearing opulent, often garish hats that were sometimes personalized to represent their individual skills or interests, or at least their house’s codes. The Catherinettes’ patron saint is Catherine of Alexandria, a skilled debater who died in the fourth century and who, according to legend, converted pagan scholars to Christianity and refused to wed a Roman emperor. The Catherinettes wear hats to represent “I’m available,” and I’m looking for a husband. In the late 1940s, Schiaparelli’s Catherinettes wore oversized versions of the designer Elsa Schiaparelli’s surreal fragrance bottles in the shape of suns and candlesticks. The future Mrs. is using her hat to say “I’m a good catch” and “I’m eager for marriage.”
Source link
