Fashion 88 : He Has a Top-Selling Perfume and Chic Boutiques, but Does He Really Know Anything About Taste?

A few words from Bijan Pakzad, the new self-appointed arbiter of taste:

- New York tap water is good taste; Perrier is bad taste.

- Leather floors are good taste; wall-to-wall carpeting is bad taste.

- Wearing the same cologne as your driver is extreme bad taste.

- Bad taste is asking someone not to smoke. Good taste? Not smoking.

- Nix on going topless; a one-piece is better.

- And visible panty lines? Ugly, ugly, ugly.

He’s at it again. Bijan--the menswear designer and retailer who brought you bulletproof clothes, chinchilla bedspreads, $3,000 suits and signed and gold-inlaid designer pistols--now is telling the world what he thinks, whether the world wants to know or not.

He is spreading his message through his latest magazine advertising campaigns for his women’s perfume, now one of the hottest-selling fragrances around. One two-page spread lists his “10s”: “10 most favorite things in my life, 10 favorite movies or plays of mine.” The other ad details, “The bad, the good and the ugly,” taste-wise.

Explains His Philosophy

But why should the world care what Bijan thinks?

“I took advantage of my thoughts to do something, that you stop to read it,” he explains. “I tell you who I am, and I am right to say that. It is not a strange philosophy. It is a true philosophy!

“I do believe that a man in a toupee is bad taste. Or for a man to wear a contact lens to look prettier? That’s . . . that’s . . . a bad attitude!” he sputters.

And why should the world trust Bijan’s taste?

“Because Bijan is dressing 20,000 people in the world, and those 20,000 people are big people in the world,” he says, emphatically. “Because Bijan introduces quality. And if you believe it is quality, you are not fair not to compliment the guy who created that quality.”

Most people will have to trust the judgment of the select customers who have bought Bijan clothes, because unless they have a Brink’s truck filled with money, it’s unlikely they will ever set foot in his stores. Entry to the Bijan shops on Rodeo Drive and on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is by appointment only. The door is locked.

That is an elitism that the 44-year-old Iranian-born Bijan--who has gone by a lone trade name since long before Madonna was in crucifixes--has cultivated in his years in business.

“It’s a very strange way, to show by appointment,” he admits. “Don’t think you can walk in and touch everything and ruin everything and say, ‘Bye-bye.’ Because that’s very American, and I respect that. But not for this type of clothing, those suits.”

Bijan, however, is willing now to break down the wall. A little.

Tiny Boutique

His ads are one way he is reaching out to the masses, who are reaching back. Bijan has received 1,000 response letters, 950 of them positive, he says, adding: “Sometimes you have to open your heart and mind to the people outside and say what you want! I think a woman who uses my perfume every morning, or a man (who uses) my after-shave, mentally should know who it is who is allowing them this morning to use this cologne.”

Bijan, whose accented speech reveals that he has not perfected the American idiom, also has sidled up to more common customers through the tiny perfume boutique that takes up a corner of his Rodeo Drive store.

The door is open. But the boutique is separated from his clothing store by a glass wall lined with bottles of perfume that sell for $300 an ounce. “My (clothing) prices,” he concedes, “make a glass wall between me and those people outside, and I find out many of them have lots of taste but not that type of money!” He flashes his toothy grin, which borders on a grimace and makes him look as if a doctor had just given him a shot but he kind of liked it. He lights up a Dunhill in his windowless office on the second floor of his Beverly Hills store and exhales, squinting through a cloud of smoke.

His clients, he says, are the richest and most powerful men in the world. Behind him are framed pictures of the Shah of Iran, President Reagan and Prince Phillip. He doesn’t like to name names of his customers, but occasionally teases with a king here and a president there.

In his stores, Bijan himself is king. He asks for coffee--”beige”--from a pleasant, white-jacketed young man, Michael, who brings the drink on a silver tray decorated with a single lily.

He calls for his secretary to bring him one of his infamous guns, kept in a mink pouch inside a Lucite box. Bijan hands over the heavy black pistol with the gold barrel and explains it is “not a killer item, as you would think,” but something for collectors. A gift a king would give to a king.

Such royal affluence has been part of Bijan’s life since the beginning. He is the eldest of five children of well-to-do parents in Iran, where his father was an industrialist.

He spurned the family steel business for fashion, a move that did not thrill his father. (Now that he is a success, however, that is all forgotten by his parents, who have resettled in Newport Beach.) Bijan attended design schools in Italy and Switzerland, planning to become a designer and to settle in America, where he has since become a naturalized citizen.

“I was like an Arabian horse that runs very well and very fast,” he says. “But you need a place to run. And to me, the United States was the place I could run.”

His desire to own his own business brought him to New York 18 years ago to set up shop. “But I didn’t like it because it was too easy for me,” he says. “Every successful designer started in New York.”

On the other hand, Southern California, where the male uniform then was a T-shirt and cut-offs, was a challenge. He started with a small boutique in Beverly Hills and workshops in Europe, serving a small, exclusive clientele. He opened a store on Rodeo Drive in 1976 and one in Manhattan in 1983.

Bijan always has emphasized service. He has been known to fly collections to customers who don’t blink an eye at dropping $100,000 for a new season’s wardrobe.

But selling clothes behind locked doors wasn’t enough.

He made headlines with his gun, bullet-proof clothing, prices and advertising. He dreams up all the ad campaigns, which usually feature him prominently.

Once, he appeared in ads with real rabbis and nuns; another time he was with a sumo wrestler. He introduced his gun with a full-page ad featuring a woman in Middle Eastern garb pointing the pistol at the camera. Another ad had a model accusing him of being a male chauvinist. That shooting required her to slap Bijan 100 times. His face hurt for two days.

‘I Want to be Different’

“I don’t know why I want to be controversial. I want to be different,” Bijan says, as he leads a tour of his store and encourages a visitor to touch his clothing fabrics so their quality can be appreciated.

Quality is one of his favorite words; he feels it is what he stands for. When he pronounces the term it has four syllables. “ Ka-wa-lee-tee ,” he says, drawing it out like taffy.

Bijan waves his cigarette as he talks, which brings Michael to suddenly appear by his side holding a huge glass ashtray. Bijan tips the ash from his cigarette and Michael silently walks away. Meanwhile, a few feet away in the perfume boutique, a woman who is wearing a tank top with her bra strap showing asks a clerk about the prices of the fragrances.

Such contradictions are the essence of Bijan’s universe. He calls to the world through his advertising, then pushes people away by locking his door. He dismisses his success, saying “I don’t want to talk about money.” But he quotes figures about his business with relish. (Sales of his perfume, introduced last year, are expected to reach $20 million this year; his business has made $200 million, thus far.)

It’s all part of the plan, says Daryoush Mahboubi, Bijan’s business partner of 12 years. Mahboubi, a Beverly Hills real estate developer and fellow Iranian expatriate, explains that Bijan creates controversy because “He’s very much aware of the fact that if he creates something extremely good but nobody takes notice of it, there is no satisfaction in it for him. . . .”

They met in 1973 when Bijan was still working from his first Beverly Hills boutique. “He had the idea of building a showroom on Rodeo Drive, and he asked me what I thought about it,” Mahboubi explains. “Knowing him and his tremendous creative talents, I thought it was going to be very successful. After some discussion, we became partners.”

Herb Fink, who owns several Rodeo Drive boutiques, including Theodore and Theodore Man, believes his flamboyant neighbor is an anomaly: “I don’t know if anybody knows him that well. He’s not one of the regular guys that you walk down the street and say hello to. I see him occasionally at lunch. He’s not too visual on Rodeo.”

Though he concedes he knows little about Bijan’s business, Fink says he understands why the designer’s showroom is shut to the public: “Those people who are spending a lot of money are looking for more privacy. They want convenience and service, and the best way to give service is very privately.”

Bijan received a highly public honor last May from Auburn University’s School of Human Sciences for his unique marketing and design concepts. Prof. Gary Trentham was responsible for bringing Bijan to Alabama.

“He really just does everything,” gushes Trentham, who teaches fashion analysis and is saving to buy a Bijan suit. “He chooses his own fabrics, does his own advertisements. Few people like that are in control of everything they do.”

Trentham, who calls Bijan’s award and visit to the school the “highlight” of his 26 years of teaching, said that Auburn students “were overwhelmed by the success he’s had. And for some, who want to branch out on their own, this really gave them that courage.”

But Bijan’s marketing concepts do not thrill everyone in the fashion industry. There are critics, such as Tom Julian, associate fashion director of the Men’s Fashion Assn. in New York.

On a recent Los Angeles trip, Julian took note of Bijan’s concept for a perfume boutique and says, “As a consumer, I found that personally an insult. It says that my money is good enough for the fragrance but not good enough for the clothes.

“He’s a very prominent individual,” Julian adds of Bijan. “But how far can you go with new business when people can’t get into the store? Is it an ego trip? Maybe it is.”

He says Bijan’s appointment-only policy also may intimidate some men who could afford his clothes. Bijan-style exclusivity, however, does seem to be catching on, Julian notes: Ralph Lauren has done it with his Polo stores; other menswear designers like Alexander Julian are opening retail stores emphasizing service, with salesmen even putting together wardrobes for novices.

Bijan isn’t worried about other designers catching up with him. He takes situations in stride, showing little concern, for example, when he learns later at his gated Bel-Air home that workers have struck his Italian factory where his exclusive fabrics are made. The strike will be over in two days, he says, leaning back on a white sofa.

As fat koi swim lazily in the pond outside and his three chow-chows lie by the swimming pool, Bijan talks about an unnamed American firm that came to him two weeks ago to try to buy him out. The deal: $300 million each for him and Mahboubi, plus a stunning salary for five years. After that, the company and Bijan would part ways, the company keeping his name and Bijan going on to conquer other worlds.

Can’t Quit

“I said, ‘Dar, $300 million sounds good.’ And he said, ‘First of all, it will be $150 million after taxes, and you have that feeling now that you design, you do something. What else can you do after that happens?’ And I know myself. I know never ever can I quit. I know that if I do not design every three months, I would die. . . . It’s not the money that I want. . . .”

He insists he prefers giving and receiving appreciation. “So for that reason, we very politely said, ‘Thank you, no.’ ” to the deal, he says.

Besides, Bijan has other things on his mind now. A year and a half ago, he married his second wife, Tracy. She was one of his house models, the one who slapped him 100 times. Bijan has a 25-year-old daughter, Daniella, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce. She does the publicity for his women’s fragrance. He and Tracy have a 3-month-old daughter, Alexandra Persia. His new family life has been one of the best things to happen to Bijan in a long time, Mahboubi says.

Still, Bijan is restless. He is planning 13 15-second television spots based on his “10” and good taste-bad taste print ads. He is used to being recognized now, but usually in exclusive areas: on the Concorde, at fashionable parties. His new TV ads, he admits, may make him a familiar face to, say, waitresses.

“Yeah,” he says with a shrug. “I am not very much for it, but I guess that’s part of it. If you want to be controversial and you want to make a statement, you have to do it.”