The term “haute couture” is French for “high sewing”, and has for 150 years referred to exclusive tailored Parisian clothing. Somewhere along the way, the abbreviated version of the term gained favour, with “couture” custom-fitted clothing being produced in fashion capitals such as New York, Milan, London, and Tokyo. Recently, the bogan has become aware of the prestige cachet of couture, and it wants in.
A decade ago, some forward-thinking clothing companies identified the ability of the couture concept to fleece buckets of cash out of the bogan female who wanted to feel an affiliation with high fashion. In order to neatly package the idea for the bogan though, there needed to be an anglicising “zazzing up” of the term, similar to the “All Berry Blast” beverage at Boost Juice. Ironically, the first major example that appeared was “Juicy Couture”, an American label that sold mass-produced velour tracksuits at department stores. The “couture” term allowed an astounding price premium to be applied, and the endorsement of Madonna cemented the brand at the top of the new female bogan “want” list.
The cat was out of the bag; the new way to double the amount that a bogan was willing to pay for clothing was to incorporate the C word into the brand name, and the potential to pitch to the bogan male also became apparent. The actual meaning of the term had been completely lost by this point, and the bogan just interpreted it to mean “fancy”. The increasingly chronic boganisation of the term has continued through to the present day. Low quality “fight branded” clothing for bogan thugs now even contains the word “couture” plastered across it (in reference to a wrestler), in a font that makes them feel like they have Ben Cousins’ Ned Kelly slogan tattoo across their stomachs.
At this point, the bogan male is able to enter the nightclub in his “XTREME COUTURE” gear, which eloquently portrays his nuanced understanding of his embodiment of not only brutal power, but the refinement of 19th century bespoke Parisian tailoring.