To qualify as a couture house, which is an official designation like champagne, a brand must maintain an atelier of a certain number of artisans full time and produce a specific number of garments twice a year for a show. There are only a very few that can fulfill the requirements, including Chanel, Dior and Valentino. A lot have dropped out over the years (Balmain, Versace, Saint Laurent), and the governing organization that adjudicates this has relaxed some of its rules to admit younger, less resourced and guest designers, like Iris van Herpen and Guo Pei, who made Rihanna’s Met Gala sunny-side-up egg cape.

Still, there are only a few hundred clients in the world who regularly buy couture, including Middle Eastern royalty and American businesswomen. Guests often sit on gold ballroom chairs. At Chanel, the designer Karl Lagerfeld has a tendency to recreate gardens from around the world, from Versailles to Norway, as his sets.

Sounds like the ultimate let-them-eat-cake event, right? In a world struggling with income inequality, riven by tides of immigration and deep social divisions, where streetwear is on the rise, why cover it at all?

For me, it’s never been about imagining myself in the clothes, or even being able to buy the clothes, any more than watching great sports is about being able to play soccer like Lionel Messi.

It’s about using this particular craft form as a wormhole into what’s going on in the world. The gowns themselves may not seem that relevant. But the issues they raise are.