couturière

See also: couturiere

English

Alternative forms

• couturiere

Etymology

From French couturière.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kuˈtʊɹ.i.əɹ/, /-iˌɛɹ/

Noun

couturière (plural couturières)

1. A woman who runs a business in custom-made fashion.
   • 1994, Charlene Cross, Almost a Whisper, Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 47:

     Considering the enormous cost of the gowns, which the countess had insisted Leah needed, she imagined the couturière’s fees for such work would be equally as hefty.

   • 1994, Amy De la Haye, Shelley Tobin, Chanel: The Couturiere at Work, →ISBN, page 26:

     Many of Chanel’s biographers give the impression that she became a couturière by chance or whim, whereas in fact she had strong business sense and the backing of an intelligent, influential partner in Boy Capel.

   • 2012, Robert Warr, The Barker’s Dozen, Bellorum, →ISBN, page 56:

     A positive note today was a visit by Aunt Emily’s couturière to measure me for some ‘appropriately fashionable gowns’ as if we Americans have no idea of fashion or style.

   • 2020, Patricia Zakreski, “The Writer and the Couturière: Authorship and Creative Industry in the 1870s”, in Gerald Egan, editor, Fashion and Authorship: Literary Production and Cultural Style from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Century, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 213:

     In just moments a skirt is conceived, designed and crafted as the couturière constructs the garment “in any way that might strike her fancy.”

   • 2021, Michelle Brandstrup, “Entrepreneurs in the fashion industry”, in Léo-Paul Dana, editor, World Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship, 2nd edition, Edward Elgar Publishing, →ISBN, page 167:

     In her early years she [Coco Chanel] wanted to sing on stage, rather than to become a couturière.

French

Etymology

From couture +‎ -ière.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ku.ty.ʁjɛʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

couturière f (plural couturières, masculine couturier)

1. dressmaker
2. tailor

Related terms

• couture
• couturier

Further reading

• “couturière”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.