Subject: Saint Laurent Remains Idol of French Fashion, But He Isn't Immortal Date: Published: 4/6/89 (208 lines) Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. All About Yves: Saint Laurent Remains Idol of French Fashion, But He Isn't Immortal --- Unlike American Couturiers Without Succession Plans, YSL Sketches Its Future --- The Sweet Smell of Success ---- By Philip Revzin and Teri Agins Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal PARIS -- The most famous fashion designer in the world is holding court backstage. Cameras clatter. Models breeze past in billowing chiffon. Surrounded by his claque, Yves Saint Laurent busses a socialite on both cheeks. She is stunning in a crimson Saint Laurent outfit. He embraces a banker, distinguished in a gray Saint Laurent suit. Just moments ago, under a tent pitched in a courtyard at the Louvre, an effusive crowd roared its approval of Mr. Saint Laurent's fall line for 1989. From all sides, praise is heaped on this man who has been fashion's idol for 30 years: "Magnifique, Yves!" "Fabuleux, Yves!" "Fantastique, Yves!" But though he basks in all this adulation, Mr. Saint Laurent, who is 52 years old, looks terrible. He limps, and stands hunched over. His lips tremble as he struggles to greet friends. When a fan thrusts an autograph book at him, he has trouble writing a message. In the end, two husky assistants show up to put him into a waiting limousine. The official explanation for Mr. Saint Laurent's appearance is that he has long been in fragile health and that he gets particularly nervous and exhausted under the pressure of preparing more than 150 designs for a seasonal collection. The Saint Laurent organization denies widespread rumors that the designer is seriously ill. Even so, it is taking steps to ensure that the YSL dynasty -- nearly $2 billion in annual sales of clothing, perfume, scarves, and sundry other stuff -- lives on into the next century. The French and Italian businessmen who run YSL are about to sew up the management and capital to prevent an unfriendly takeover. And though Mr. Saint Laurent isn't grooming a creative successor, the company's solid financial footing virtually guarantees that when talent is needed it will be there, his advisers assert. At other ateliers here, similar plans have been hatched as a number of the biggest names in fashion near retirement age or confront their own mortality. The French know that planning works: While many of America's designer labels (Norman Norell, Hattie Carnegie, Claire McCardell) withered and died with their creators, the fashion empires founded by the late Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, to name two, are thriving, as successive generations of designers create the fabulous $25,000 haute couture dresses that inspire a larger market to buy $200 silk scarves, $120-an-ounce perfume and $40 Baby Dior nightgowns. But across the Atlantic in New York, where made-to-order gowns are a much smaller part of the business than they are in France, the upstart high-fashion houses along Manhattan's Seventh Avenue have yet to cope very well when death claims the famous name on the label. In the U. S., the high-fashion industry (as opposed to mass-market clothiers) is younger and less institutionalized than the French couture houses. And in recent years, AIDS has killed off some of the industry's bright lights. They definitely do things differently in Paris, where fashion is sacrosanct. After all, it is one of France's top three export industries, with annual sales of more than $4 billion. It employs more people than the French automobile industry. And it is draped in centuries of French tradition and national self-image. France carefully limits the number of designers (currently 23) in the "haute couture" rank-houses famous for made-to-order creations and expensive ready-to-wear collections. "Haute couture is the place to experiment, like Formula One racing for automobile companies," says Christian Lacroix, who two years ago left his spot as the heir to the late Jean Patou. Mr. Lacroix started the fashion house that bears his name with backing from Agache, the French textile company and retailer. Since 1987, the company has invested $16 million in Lacroix and has yet to see a profit. In addition to his $15,000 creations, Mr. Lacroix also designs relatively less-expensive fashions for women and is coming out with a perfume. All will bear his name and enjoy a heady association with haute couture, albeit at more affordable prices. "It's like making a movie in order to be able to sell the popcorn and sodas," observes Colombe Nicholas, the former president of the U. S. operations of Christian Dior and for Lacroix. While it is the clothes that come down the runway that make a designer's reputation, the key to perpetuating the designer's name and profitability is a successful perfume line. Fragrances are central to traditional French fashion houses like Chanel and Jean Patou. The House of Chanel's mainstay is its highly profitable Chanel cosmetics business, led by the 65-year-old Chanel No. 5 fragrance. Chanel cosmetics have world-wide sales of $300 million to $350 million, estimates Allan Mottus, a New York cosmetics consultant. Designer clothes benefit hugely from the millions of dollars in image advertising for a fragrance. With a top-selling fragrance, "If you get the designer name out there, dead or alive, it will create the aura of prestige," says Mr. Mottus. While any number of manufacturers can turn out beautiful rags, the designer's allure moves the merchandise. And in the U. S. more than France, if he is dead, it's a problem. Wealthy American women "relate to the designer, they like knowing and mingling with him ...," says Val Cook, a vice president of Saks-Jandel, a Washington, D. C., retailer. She believes that a proper successor to a deceased designer is an "up and coming star who is talented but also charming and very social at the same time." A smooth succession, Paris style, took place in 1958 when the accomplished 21-year-old Yves Saint Laurent was suddenly promoted from understudy to star at the death of Christian Dior. (Mr. Saint Laurent went off on his own three years later.) But stand outside 550 Seventh Avenue in New York long enough and the U. S. industry's succession predicament becomes clear. Stretch limousines pull up to the brown-brick office building and drop off Bill Blass, age 66; Geoffrey Beene, 62; Oscar de la Renta, 57, and Ralph Lauren, 49. Fashion insiders say that while each man has become extraordinarily adept at personifying his style to movie stars and Park Avenue millionairesses, these men haven't given much thought to who will take over when they are gone, an orderly succession being the last thing on their minds. Most American fashion houses (Perry Ellis was an exception) are owned by their creators, sometimes in partnerships. "There are no fabric houses or conglomerates to back them up," says Henry Hacker, an attorney who does licensing work for several designers, "which would have an interest to carry most of these businesses on. It has a lot to do with the quick-buck mentality of Seventh Avenue." Mr. Hacker adds, "They put their energies into getting from one season to the next. They don't think about the future." Bill Blass's 27-year-old business has burgeoned to about $400 million annually at retail, mainly from 35 licensees -- including his Lincoln Continental Mark IV Bill Blass edition -- yet the dapper socialite Mr. Blass is the sole owner of his company. He has neither heirs nor understudies waiting in the wings. His assistants may do a lot of the designing, but they stay out of sight. "In a way, my business is rather antiquated," Mr. Blass allows, "since I personally OK everything ... I really run this joint." He concedes his eventual retirement will be bad for business. "I know that I can sell my clothes better than anyone else." Seventh Avenue designers "embrace the idea of their mortality in the abstract, but they don't plan for it," says Michael Lichtenstein, formerly the managing director of Halston, a fashion designer who was the rage on Seventh Avenue in the mid-'70s and whose very name is now owned by Revlon Group Inc. Mr. Lichtenstein considers Geoffery Beene, who doesn't have a big fragrance business or women's wear sales volume, among the most vulnerable to succession trouble. "He's an endangered species," Mr. Lichtenstein says. Mr. Beene's office didn't return several phone calls seeking comment. Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein are strong brands that might very well survive the men behind them. Mr. Lauren's empire includes 120 free-standing specialty stores world-wide, and nine licensees making goods in his name. Polo/Ralph Lauren Corp. claims Lauren label goods generate $2 billion in retail sales. Calvin Klein Industries Inc. products have sales approaching $1 billion annually. The company has a 13% stake in Minnetonka Inc., which makes Calvin Klein fragrances, including a new one called Eternity. (Calvin Klein's Obsession is currently the second most popular "prestige" fragrance, after Giorgio, with annual sales estimated at $100 million.) Anne Klein is the shining example, perhaps the only one, of an American high-fashion enterprise to have survived and thrived following the death of its founder. The company, now owned by Takihyo Co., has blossomed into a $150 million enterprise from the little $9 million dress business that existed when Ms. Klein died in 1972. Takihyo's president, Frank Mori, says customers were more attached to the clothes than to Ms. Klein, who antedated the designer boom of the late 1970s. Initially, Ms. Klein's design work was taken over by one of her assistants, Donna Karan, and by Louis Dell'Olio, both now famous in their own right. Succession is a big issue now that AIDS is decimating Seventh Avenue. Gone in addition to Perry Ellis are designers Chester Weinberg, Willi Smith and Tracy Mills, among many others. The Perry Ellis organization, particularly, is at the crossroads. Its current top designer, Marc Jacobs, is the second to be designated since Mr. Ellis died in 1986 at the age of 46. The house's current owner, apparel manufacturer Salant Corp., is struggling to keep the Perry Ellis high-fashion image intact so as to inspire the sales of licensees. Mr. Jacobs's designs will be seen for the first time in his debut on Monday. [85 lines irrelevant to AIDS have been removed. -- sysop] [This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]