Made to Empower

Three haute couturiers reveal how they translate a client's aspirations into garments that take hundreds of hours to create—yet are worn just once

- By Cathy Huang

The Met Gala holds an unrivalled place in the fashion calendar each May—the point at which bespoke haute couture reaches its most public and most scrutinised expression. These are garments that demand hundreds of hours of painstaking craft, and yet they come alive only when worn: when a woman steps before the cameras and meets the moment with the kind of assurance that only a perfectly realised dress can ensure. The evening is a spectacle; but it is also something more considered—a chapter in a woman's own narrative, authored by the couturier who shaped it.

Three such craftspeople tell Tatler how they do it.

TAMARA RALPH

Every Tamara Ralph piece begins with a conversation—one that sets the tone for everything that follows. The Australian couturier, whose creations have been worn on red carpets worldwide since 2010, always opens each commission by asking what the wearer is looking to achieve, any particular must-haves, and “generally what makes them feel their most beautiful and confident”. Ralph marked a new chapter in 2023, launching her eponymous label after a two-year hiatus following her departure from Ralph & Russo, the house she co-founded. Her design vocabulary is classical in form and romantic in spirit, often built around corseted bodices, sweeping trains and ornate metalwork. What distinguishes her work, however, is the surface: thousands of hand-applied pearls, crystals or embroidered motifs that build a tactile density—almost a coat of armour for the wearer.