An influencer in China has been outraged after a French haute couture brand loaned her outfit to British actress Anya Taylor-Joy. Taylor-Joy wore the black bodysuit adorned with white silk roses, from Giambattista Valli’s Spring/Summer 2024 Couture collection, at the London premier of the film , on May 17. The influencer, known as Lulu, was angry because she had ordered the suit and paid a deposit for it in January.
She felt it was inappropriate for the brand to lend it to somebody else without asking her – especially another celebrity who will be photographed wearing it first. Lulu, dubbed by many as “China’s haute couture queen”, said she had been purchasing high-end designs for a decade. Haute couture is a French term that translates as “high dressmaking” and generally refers to handcrafted garments made by skilled artisans using the best quality materials.
Such top-notch clothes take many people many hours to make and generally cost a minimum of US$100,000. The pieces are usually one-of-a-kind rather than mass-produced. Lulu said there is an unwritten rule that brands do not lend the original dress to celebrities if a customer has bought it.
The “haute couture queen” rose to fame in 2014, wearing the same Valentino music-notes-emblazoned dress that Katy Perry wore earlier that year to the Grammy Awards. When she was accused by some fashion bloggers of being a copycat, Lulu said she had already bought the dress and so she was, in fact, wearing an item fro.
