Threadbare fashion houses avoid costly Paris shows

Press, 27 January 1986, Page 10

Threadbare fashion houses avoid costly Paris shows

By

IRINA BOSSY-GHICA,

of Reuter (through NZPA) Paris High-fashion designers are launching their latest creations with customary glitter but threadbare edges are beginning to show through the glamour. The (northern) springsummer show, one of two highlights of the fashion calendar, will cast the spotlight on collections from 22 designers, including such mainstays of the fashion industry as Yves

Saint-Laurent and Christian Dior. But several big names have decided not to attend the week-long event starting today, preferring to save money instead. Andre Courreges, the French designer who introduced the mini-skirt to haute couture, has said it will not stage a show for the second season in a row because of financial differences with the fashion house’s Japanese owners. Fashion shows, whose compulsory 75 models for each house cost between

four and five million francs ($l.Ol million to $1.27 million), aim largely at boosting the image of two dozen grands couturiers whose expensive and often extravagant garments seldom make money.

The show, held in Paris’s best salons, climaxes with the award of the “Golden Thimble,” the Oscar of the fashion world for the season’s best collection.

In theory, the publicity and prestige arising from the show helps promote

more profitable ready-to-wear clothes, designer perfumes, and manufacturing licences. But for Courreges such prestige has proved too expensive a luxury for its Japanese owners, who took over three years ago after severe financial problems. Industry sources said managers from the Japanese clothing giant, Itokin

Group, had not put enough money in the haute couture department, preferring to emphasise ready-to-wear fashions. As a result, Courreges

earlier this month temporarily lost its prestigious label of "grand couturier” after failing to present the necessary number of designs. If it is to regain the label for next season, Courreges must comply with rules set up by the profession’s union dictating the number of designs, shows, and specialised seamstresses. Another notable absentee from the spring-sum-mer show is Ted Lapidus, who is unable to present a collection largely because

of the bankruptcy of one of his licence-holders. Lapidus’ creations have slumped in critics’ esteem in recent years and his absence reflects the problems of sustaining the delicate balance between the cost of prestige and returns. A near-casualty of such costs was the house of Lanvin, which has complained of financial difficulties and given a warning that it could face the same fate as Courreges. After announcing that it would show only a limited collection to a private

clientele, Lanvin decided at the last moment to invite the press and put on a full show. Aware of troubles facing the fashion Industry, the French Government has launched an active campaign to boost Paris’s reputation as the unchallenged centre of elegance. The Industry Minister, Edith Cresson, opened France’s first Fashion Institute last week. The institute offers a year-long post-graduate course in all aspects of

the trade from design to production technology and marketing. The French President,. Mr Francois Mitterrand, has also put his weight behind efforts to boost the industry, and is due to open the first State-run Fashion Museum during this week’s fashion show. • The museum, housed in the Louvre, in central Paris, will complement the smaller Paris fashion museum, which is showing a retrospective of Pierre Balmain’s creations.

Struggling fashion houses can also look to such thriving French designers as Yves Saint-Lau-rent and Pierre Cardin for tips on how to expand their business. The Saint-Laurent house, under the direction of Pierre Berge, has managed to combine continuing prestige as a highfashion trend-setter with a wide range of “affordable” fashion products. Rather than cut back on prestige-winning events such as shows, it has even branched out beyond

> . ■ 1 . . fashion to put on exhibitions of Saint-Laurent’s works in New York and Peking. Similar shows are scheduled for Paris, Moscow, and Leningrad. Pierre Cardin has followed an equally diversified course, opening a branch of his fashionable Paris restaurant, Maxim’s, •in Peking and holding fashion shows in the Chinese capital. He also recently signed a contract with the Soviet .Union for the manufacture of Cardin clothes and designs.