The Designing Man

Pierre Cardin is the Parisian fashion designer who first put models in crash helmets, matched short skirts with colored stockings and more recently dressed men and women in futuristic space suits. Fashion experts rank him among the top five trend-setting designers, along with Yves St. Laurent, Courreges, Ungaro and the House of Dior. As haute couture's top entrepreneur, however, Cardin has no equal.

Cardin shocked the French fashion world when, in 1962, he began to sell copies of his creations. He argued that ready-to-wear clothing manufacturers were already copying Paris creations, "so why shouldn't we run the show?" Today he heads a marketing organization that sells clothes to men, women and children in dozens of countries on five continents.

Cardin-designed or Cardin-approved products are sold in special boutiques--located in the U.S., Canada, Italy, Lebanon and France--and through licensees, who pay him a 7 1/2% to 10% royalty. Last year, sales amounted to $27 million, more than double the 1965 total. What Cardin nets from all this he will not say, but the figure runs into the millions.

Countless Copies. This week in Paris, Cardin will hold his first 1969 show of the women's fashions that will later flow out, in the form of countless copies, to the U.S., Brazil, Japan, Australia, Germany and other countries. Skirts for day wear will be ankle-length and flaring. Like Cardin-designed men's wear first marketed in more than 100 U.S. stores last fall, the women's line will be sold in department and specialty stores next fall. Last month Cardin signed a deal with Gunther Oppenheim of Modelia to market Cardin women's clothes in the U.S. Cardin also markets men's hosiery through Vanguard, jewelry through Swank, shirts through Eagle Shirtmakers, ties through Cravat-Pierre, pajamas through Host and wallets through Prince Gardner.

Most of the products are made in the country where sold, primarily to avoid import duties. An aide handles administrative details while Cardin--often dressed in a white turtleneck sweater, black felt tunic and wide leather belt--creates. He designs all Cardin-labeled clothing but not all of the accessories, though they have his "approval." His prices run about one-fifth as high as the originals; among the copies, men's suits sell for $175 and up, belts for $10 to $25 and shirts for $15 to $40.

Just a Technician. At 46, Bachelor Cardin may appear to be an affected dandy, but he works in a frenzy, often forgetting to grab even a sandwich for lunch. He learned design in Paris at the House of Paquin, at Christian Berard and at Christian Dior. Equally important was his job as an accountant for the French Red Cross during World War II. "It was there," he recalls, "that I learned about balance sheets, paychecks and tax schedules. All of that seemed absurd, but it later helped me handle business affairs."

In 1950, he opened his own attic atelier and soon after moved to his present headquarters on the elegant rue Faubourg-Saint-Honore. Among the customers for his men's clothes--distinguishable by their long jackets and pinch waists--are movie stars, young financiers and French Diplomat Herve Alphand, whose wife Nicole was Washington's hostess par excellence in the Kennedy era. Cardin hired her in 1965 as his publicity director, and she opened his first U.S. venture, a Cardin boutique in New York's Bonwit Teller. Now Bonwit's has three Cardin boutiques--for men, women and children--and all the merchandise is imported.

Other designers have begun to follow Cardin's lead by widely marketing clothes and accessories, but none of them are nearly so large as Cardin. He has no patience with designers who claim that they are artists who must cater to an elite. "The couturier is just a laboratory technician," Cardin says. "He must follow progress--and progress in business comes from quantity sales."

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