Innovative Parisian designer on flying visit

Press, 12 November 1977, Page 6

Innovative Parisian designer on flying visit

Why has Pierre Cardin chosen these times of recession to launch his ready-to-wear label in New Zealand?

“Business, everything is business these days,” shrugged the slight, silver-haired Parisian designer during his press conference in Auckland yesterday afternoon. “When you have a name

you want to sell it everywhere possible,”

The Cardin name sells around the world under 390 licences, including the 14 he has just negotiated in Australia and New Zealand. His shirts and ties are already on sale in New Zealand. The suits, made by Lane Walker Rudkin in Christchurch, and the knitwear, by Tekau in Ashburton and timaru, will be retailed by next March.

On his second, brief visit to New Zealand, Cardin showed a small collection of couture clothes for women, chosen to startle the New Zealand press. In the jump-suit gathered to the ankle, and swirls and pleats and capes and skirts, came bare shoulders and bare bottoms.

“Are you also baring bosoms this year?” he was asked. “Oh no. I did that six years ago,” he replied. Although Pierre Cardin designs everything from bath-

(rooms to bicycles, he does not think such diverse activity dissipates his talents for designing clothing. “When you can draw a dress, it is not difficult also to draw a table,” he said.

Although he considers himself at the head of his design team, it is his “18 boys and girls” who. interpret his inspiration. He is adamant the licences are carefully policed so they reproduce the quality he seeks. In 1959 Pierre Cardin was the first Paris couture de-

signer to go into ready-to-wear. The Paris pundits, he said, maintained it would kill couture. “Now everyone has followed me.” He shows no inclination to launch a ready-to-wear label in New Zealand. In fact, he would much rather talk about couture, or the new store he is opening in Paris in a few weeks, or about the 52 per cent share he has) bought in the famed Maxines restaurant, the chain of which he intends to open across the United States. These days it’s all business. But he was here, he explained, especially to meet the press, whose work he respected, and so he was happy to answer any ques-

tions. Throughout he was informal, quick on the up-take and ready with a quip.

A Parisian model, Maryse Gaspard—tall, dark, slender, slant-eyed—is travelling with him. We were told not to ask her any questions because she speaks no English. But she followed the proceedings closely.

“Are all your models thin?” Cardin is asked. “You want to see a fat model?” he asks in return. “Next time I bring a fat model.” Is he following the French rugby tests? “No. Have we

lost? The French are always last.” “May we ask how old you are?” inquires a pretty young thing from the front row of the press seats. “Fifty-five,” he replies promptly. “Are you slowing down?” she wants to know. “In the nights, yes,” he says succinctly. j An aristocrat in designing, he emphatically does not get his inspiration from what he sees worn on the street. In fact, he thinks most of that is quite dreadful. No, he hopes to give the people some inspiration. Yet as a designer of beautiful clothes, he is not depressed at the standard of

dress round the world generally. “Nowadays people are not educated on how to dress. They put a pink skirt with yellow shoes and a Mexican shawl with anything. If they like? So what. I do not dictate.” he said, smiling., “People should dress to suit themselves. A woman should not be a clothes hanger.” He has not much time for nostalgia. “Anyone can copy a dress from a 1940 s movie,” he said.

The reason he has stayed on top of the design world for 25 years was that he always does something different.

Pierre Cardin has words of Warning about fashion. “Fashion is only for the young. When you are not young, take care. It is very easy to look ridiculous in (extremes,” he said.

Usually he has little time to think about his own wardrobe, just as he seldom has time to spend three hours dining at Maxines. But he wears only the most conservative of his own designs, and never anyone else’s clothes — “Why should I?” When is he going to spend a little more time in New Zealand? A return visit is planned two years hence. “Next time I will have a big party in your country with all my beautiful boys and girls to show my clothing,” he promises.

From LEONE STEWART in Auckland