Talar Karatas is a business owner and haute couture seamstress of European Tailoring, Costa Mesa, CA. For over thirty years she has worked with numerous couture and haute couture designer names such as Versace, Gucci, Fendi, Hermes, and Louis Vuitton.

Couture is high-quality, handmade designer clothing while haute couture is a designation of the French government for fashion that’s couture but also custom-fitted, unique, and exclusive. Haute couture pieces don’t often make it from the runway into stores but rather from the runway directly to a client.

Talar sees haute couture as a way of thinking and a way of working. Because haute couture is one-of-a-kind high-fashion handmade by designers, the level of skill and talent required of a haute couture seamstress is expert. Expertise is expected. “Excellent sewing and pattern cutting skills, accuracy and neatness. But also an eye for style and detail, an interest in textiles, design, and fashion. And of course patience and tact and good customer service skills.”

Working daily with the best couture and haute couture designers, Talar is often inspired to reinvent, innovate, and create new possibilities. With sustainability in mind, she collects the precious and beautiful scraps from alteration trimmings and designs and renews them into her own couture creations. She also takes pieces from years ago and remixes them with today’s styles, layering years of fashion into brand new timeless designs. Couture pieces can take hours and hours to create, but with Talar’s sustainable and renewable take on couture fashion, she can produce a final product in two to five days.

“Renewable couture fashion has a very short cycle between creation and final product. It’s incredible. Immediate satisfaction and accomplishment.”