The Return of Couture

The Return of Couture

In a world increasingly geared towards commodity and convenience, Couture reestablishes style through craftsmanship and individual client care.

BY GRACE HENDRICKS

Couture (coutureuomo. com) is a high-quality European menswear store based in Union Square, San Francisco, whose history began at the side of Owner David Yahid’s grandmother. Yahid’s grandmother was a wedding dress couturier in Iran, who paid young David 25 cents a day to help her create her masterpieces.

“She kept the money in a drawer,” Yahid remembered. But it wasn’t the money that intrigued young David. It was the “the touch, the smell, the texture” of the clothing that provoked an unwavering passion within him which he would pursue for the rest of his life and through which he would gift so many.

After the revolution of 1979, Yahid left Iran to find a home in Europe. In his first few months, he moved between many different countries. All of his moves introduced him to new roommates, one of whom would later become his first menswear client.

Yahid recalls, “My roommates would borrow clothes from me to go out on the weekends and to go on dates. I eventually bought a leather jacket and one of my roommates liked it so much that he asked if he could buy it from me, and I said yes.”

Eventually, Yahid landed in France, where his cousin had started a clothing company. Between his passion for clothes and his recent success in selling his leather jacket, Yahid immediately began working for his cousin. Shortly thereafter, however, it became clear that the market wasn’t fruitful for them in France. This realization ultimately gave Yahid the opportunity he had wanted for a while: to sell clothing in the United States.

Yahid first moved to Los Angeles, where he initially operated a clothing business out of the trunk of his car. A few months later, on July 4th, he visited San Francisco for the first time and that was it. He instantly fell in love with the Bay Area.

He went to lunch in Sausalito with his girlfriend at the time and during their meal, he told her that he wanted to buy a home in the Bay. Two years later, he bought his first condo in Sausalito and he’s lived in Marin County ever since.

Shortly after arriving in San Francisco, he started a job working as a salesman in a clothing store. Over the next few years, he worked his way up the ladder, until he became manager of a clothing store that expanded greatly from one store to seven stores during his time. It was this fateful expansion that unknowingly solidified Yahid’s values for his own store, all of which remain core pillars of Couture to this day.

As manager, Yahid had become consumed with managing people, bills, production, and the like. His position and responsibilities were causing him to lose connection with one of the primary reasons he fell in love with clothing—the people who wear them. And that was it for Yahid.

Soon after, Yahid left his management position to begin his own European menswear store, which from the beginning, he established would be grounded in quality, in style, and very prominently, in fostering relationships with his clients. As Yahid said, “I wanted one store, but a good store. I would refuse ten clients to fully serve one.” And so, Couture began.

Read more at https://issuu.com/rareluxuryliving/docs/troora_san_francisco_2021_pages/352