Author: Zhang Xia
Source: Business People (ID: biz-leaders)
Yesterday (December 29, French local time), the famous fashion designer Pierre Cardin passed away in Paris, triggering a wave of remembrance.
The reasons for remembering Pierre Cardin are roughly as follows:
1. He is an old friend of Chinese, the first Western designer to introduce Western fashion to New China. In March 1979, at the age of 57, Pierre Cardin came to China and led 12 fashion models to hold a costume performance at the National Culture Palace in Beijing, the first international brand demonstration since 1949.
2. Remembering him is like remembering a piece of history. "Pierre Cardin" is a clothing brand, fashion enlightenment for a generation of successful Chinese men, once synonymous with high-end clothing and luxury consumption in the minds of the Chinese people.
3. He introduced an emerging lifestyle, opening the Maxim Western Restaurant at the Chongwenmen Hotel in Beijing, the birthplace of Chinese rock, where singers such as Cui Jian, Cheng Lin, He Yong, and Ai Jing all performed before they became famous.
But instead of seeing him as a friend with friendly feelings toward China, it is better to regard him as a smart and good businessman who loves to make money — this is the origin of his intersection with China and, incidentally, China.
Pierre Cardin's business acumen was evident in his career as a designer.
According to the data, Pierre Cardin was born in Italy to a poor peasant family and dropped out of school at the age of 14 to apprentice in a small clothing store. In 1946, by chance, at the age of 24, he designed costumes and masks for the famous French director Jean Coctor's film Beauty and the Beast, which became a hit and was recommended to Mr. Dior's workshop as an apprentice. At Dior, Pierre Cardin was highly regarded as an assistant to designer Dior and was involved in the production of the clothing collection "NEW LOOK", a piece that laid the foundation of the brand's DIOR.
In 1950, Pierre Cardin opened an independent fashion design company, and with his bold and advanced design concepts, he set many precedents: in 1953, he designed a pleated wool coat, which sold 200,000 pieces in the United States; in 1954, he opened the fashion boutique EVE; and in 1958, he designed the world's first genderless clothing collection.
Documentary House of Cardin (2020)
As a star figure in the European high fashion industry, he has won the Oscar "Golden Thimble" award of the fashion industry three times in his life, and no designer has been able to surpass it so far. However, he is a "rebel" of haute couture.
In France in the 1950s, haute couture was expensive and only a few upper-class people could afford it. Pierre Cardin, whose career is at the peak, is therefore questioned, saying, "What is the use of what we call 'creativity' that no one wears?" ”。 And thus put forward the idea of "fashion popularization", trying to make the price and design of fashion more popular and people-friendly.
In 1959, he launched his ready-to-wear collection at the Paris Spring Department Store. This move broke with the tradition of the Parisian fashion industry at that time, and he was opposed by many of his peers, even removing him from the French Haute Couture Chamber.
But it didn't pose any threat or obstacle to him, and the rebel, who was seen as "undesirable" in the design world, enjoyed unprecedented success. In 1973, Pierre Cardin began to cross-border layout, with his own name set up the French merchant Pierre Cardin company, his name registered trademark licensed to thousands of different products, such as children's clothing, accessories, pens, furniture, etc., the company's business is becoming increasingly global, so that "Pierre Cardin" all over the world.
Since the 1980s, Pierre Cardin's licensing projects have reached more than 800 projects, with more than 500 factories around the world, which is simply more fun than Disney, which sells IP. The New York Times called him a "brand visionary," with a 2002 article stating that about 800 products bearing his name, sold in more than 140 countries, brought him $1 billion a year, and that he could recover about 35 million euros a year for the royalties of trademark rights alone.
The development of the Chinese market is officially part of its business vision. In the late 1970s, during the turbulent years of Chinese social and political upheaval, he set foot on Chinese soil, and for a time Pierre Cardin's name resounded inside and outside the Great Wall. He also used the money he earned from China to buy silk and other fabrics to transport back to France, and produced a batch of clothing with a strong oriental atmosphere. In 1977, Pierre Cardin established relations with Russia, became interested in India in 1983, and sent his subordinates to Vietnam in 1991 to negotiate contracts.
Pierre Cardin in China. The picture shows a screenshot of "Beijing Memory"
Zeng Dan, then director of the consulting department of China Fashion Magazine, had contact with Pierre Cardin. She was quite touched by Pierre Cardin's foresight: "In 1985, Pierre Cardin was invited to Beijing to give a lecture to Beijing students at the China Fashion Culture Correspondence Center. The content is about the three pillar industries of the kingdom of Pierre Cardan: fashion, real estate and fast food. After leaving, the students were indignant and asked me why I had invited such a person to give a lecture and failed to solve the technical problem of clothing for them. In fact, I didn't understand the meaning at the time, Mr. Cardin was talking about his success model. Obviously, the lecture content is really too advanced, and everyone has not heard of real estate, fast food and other words. If one of these more than a thousand people really understood and followed suit, he would probably already be a billionaire. ”①
Indeed, Pierre Cardin's vision in China is not only manifested in his bold development of the clothing market, but also in the diversification of the variety of business. His business in China spans commodities, automobiles, aircraft modeling, real estate, catering and other industries. Among them, in 1983, Pierre Cardin invested 5 million yuan to open maxima restaurant, and at the time of the per capita monthly income of 60 yuan, the per capita consumption was 150 yuan. By 2009, Pierre Cardin had 24 agents in China alone.
In 2007, Pierre Cardin held the 40th anniversary show at the Great Wall. Image source: Visual China
"If someone asks me to make toilet paper, I'll do it too, why not?" In a 2002 interview, Pierre Cardin said so. Among his many industries, the most contrasting commodity to his "old business" is the Pierre Cardin brand canned sardines. In response, he once said that because of hunger during the war, he would rather smell sardines than perfume.
To put it bluntly, Pierre Cardin is a man who refuses to talk about high art, is afraid of poverty, and loves to make money, but as long as the business model is established and hard enough, as a good businessman without ideals, he has invisibly changed the world. After all, he contracted the fashion memories of a generation of Chinese men and still rules the men's clothing of China's small counties; after all, Luo Yonghao, a teacher with noble ideals, is still making money by selling Pierre Cardin; as for the Antarctic people who make 1.3 billion yuan a year by selling hangtags, it is even more interesting in front of Pierre Cardin.
Of course, water can carry boats and overturn boats, and a large number of licenses have earned a large amount of money for Pierre Cardin, but also because of the confusion of authorization, uneven texture, and the sharp decline in brand value, his reputation has also been ruined.
In the Chinese market, "casting a net" authorization has led to uneven product quality, and there are various "Pierre Cardin" on the market. On various complaint websites, there are many complaints about Pierre Cardin. At the same time, in the vast third- and fourth-tier urban markets, there are still a large number of fake goods.
In September 2009, Wenzhou Chenglong Co., Ltd., composed of Wenzhou businessmen Pan Changhai, Sun Xiaofei, Chen Xiaofei and others, announced that it would acquire the operation and management rights of some of Pierre Cardin's products in Chinese mainland for 37 million euros (about 370 million yuan). Behind these three people, it can be said that it is half of the men's wear department in China's third- and fourth-tier towns: Pan Changhai is the trademark owner of "Jinli" in the Chinese mainland leather goods series products and one of the acquirers of the famous brand "Cardan Road"; Sun Xiaofei is the trademark holder of Dupeng Clothing in Italy; Chen Xiaofei and Sun Xiaofei are agents of Cardile Crocodile - at this point, Pierre Cardin in Chinese supermarkets has become an authentic Chinese product.
Due to the abuse of brand authorization, Pierre Cardin has withdrawn from china's first-tier city supermarkets. Pictured here is a Pierre Cardin advertisement on the streets of Beijing in 1994. Image source: Visual China
As for the elderly Pierre Cardin, who had long since lost enough energy to manage his vast empire, he simply returned to the French countryside to enjoy life in a villa like an alien spaceship.
September 21, 2020 is the 70th anniversary celebration day of the Pierre Cardan brand, and the scene is full of stars. Pierre Cardin, 98, appeared at the venue wearing a mask and the audience stood up and applauded. At this time, Pierre Cardin (a French company) was valued at only $400 million, less than 1/3 of the valuation in the 1970s.
But that didn't stop him from being popular. That night, singer Matthew Gonder sang his own tribute song "He's Beyond Compare" to himself. The lyrics sing: "You can laugh at him, he doesn't care, critics will buy his underwear, and even critics will make him a millionaire." ”
This lyric is perhaps the best footnote in Pierre Cardin's life.
Notes: (1) "Fashion Early Spring One: The First Days of Pierre Cardin's First Coming to China", Zeng Dan
Resources:
"Pierre Cardin's Death, the Luxury and Redemption of the "Big Brother" in the Suit Industry", Beijing News Baker Finance
"Pierre Cardin died, the name deserves to be remembered", Tencent Fashion
"Pierre Cardin Was Acquired: Shanghai Zhongfu Game Wenzhou Businessman", China Fashion Brand Network
*Title image purchased from Visual China