French Fashion Houses Say Show Must Go On
These are troubled times in the haute couture industry. The spring-summer shows will open here Saturday as scheduled, but attendance is expected to be down by as much as 50% because of terrorism fears.
And even before Desert Storm, the threat of war in the Persian Gulf affected sales in the French couture houses. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, business from Arab countries--Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, among them--dropped dramatically.
Many American retailers and fashion writers will not attend the shows. Rose Marie Bravo, chief executive officer for I. Magnin, will not go to Paris this time, nor will buyers from Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman. New York-based fashion editors for Harper’s Bazaar and the New York Times Sunday Magazine will not be at the couture shows, but will send European correspondents. The daily New York Times and Vogue magazine editors are scheduled to attend.
To date, no designer has canceled his presentation. “The Americans showed their superiority in the opening hours of the war, so events warrant that the shows open as scheduled,” said Jacques Mouclier, director of the Chambre Syndicale, French fashion’s governing body.
“Life must go on,” said Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel, although, he added, “Of course, some clients will feel they don’t want to sit in a fashion show while the boys are fighting.”
But a number of social events surrounding the shows have been canceled, including dinner parties--sponsored by Gianni Versace and Gianfranco Ferre of Christian Dior--for retailers and the press.
Security at the shows will be tighter than usual. Designer salons will post guards at the door to search handbags and check identification--as they have done during the more heavily attended ready-to-wear shows since 1984, when a wave of terrorism struck here.
Estimates on the number of haute couture customers worldwide ranges from 1,000 to 3,000. Americans are the biggest spenders, followed by Europeans and Japanese. Customers from oil-rich Arab countries accounted for about 8% of the estimated $74 million in sales last year, according the Chambre Syndicale.
Given the limited number of customers and the high prices--$2,400 to $50,000 per item--a drop of even two or three regular clients can put a salon in financial trouble. Several couture houses admit they have been hit hard over the past six months.
Last October, the Nina Ricci company cut its couture operation by about half. At the time, Ricci seamstresses staged a noisy demonstration in front of the salon on dignified Avenue Montaigne because their pay had been slashed. (The salon eventually reinstated work days and pay.)
In December, the house of Pierre Balmain announced it was closing its couture division, “provisionally, for economic reasons,” for the first time since the salon opened in 1945. Balmain now plans to concentrate on ready-to-wear fashion, accessories and perfumes.
“Fifty percent of our couture business was Arab,” said Laure Chaffanjon of Balmain.
The salon of Hubert de Givenchy has relied on wealthy Arab clients for about 3% of its haute couture trade--about a dozen customers each season. Since the crisis began last August, only three of those clients have turned up. Givenchy lost three wedding party orders from the Middle East last fall, and recently, the house of Jeanne Lanvin lost one wedding party order.
Ricci president Vladimir de Kousmine said Middle Eastern customers account for about 25% of his clientele (the other 75% is divided equally among Americans, Europeans and Japanese). But, he said, “During the August and September fittings, 60% of our customers come from the Middle East. We had to drop personnel, as clients from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait did not come. The Arabs did not want to show they were buying clothes when their countries were preparing for war. Now we expect to recover our normal economy the second half of 1991.”
Christian Dior’s Arab clients account for 32% of the salon’s business, including couture, ready-to-wear, shoes and accessories. “We’ve been very lucky, not too affected by the Gulf trouble,” said a Dior spokeswoman. But she said that there has been a more serious mood among those customers. “The difference is that our Middle East clients have been buying more daytime clothes instead of evening gowns,” she noted.
Fashion industry leaders agree that big salons selling everything from couture gowns to costume jewelry are suffering less than smaller houses.
The Gulf crisis has eliminated 25% of the high-fashion customers at Lecohanet Hemant, a small but popular house here. Designer Hemant Sagar expects that the war will change the very look of French couture. “Designers will stop making gowns dripping with rich embroidery and lace--a look that makes a simple statement-- money ,” he said. “Now fashion (including his) will become more simple, to show off the structure formerly hidden by feathers and glitter.”
Some designers decline to comment on whether the crisis has crippled their earnings. An official of the Jean-Louis Scherrer firm, long known as a favorite among wealthy Arab customers, said, “We do not give any precise information on this subject.”
De Kousmine of Ricci emphasizes, as do other couture officials, that there have been sagging sales in all French luxury items, including jewelry and silverware.
A spokesman at Christofle, the French luxury silverware company, however, firmly refuses to comment, saying, “That subject is too hot.”
