皮爾•卡丹:時尚風格轉變太快

Today's fashion designers change styles much too fast, partly due to twice-yearly collections, making it harder to create couture that lasts for years, designer Pierre Cardin said on Tuesday.

In Tokyo for a show co-sponsored by a Japanese department store, the 88-year-old doyen of French fashion also said that it is now much harder for designers than when he first started in the business roughly 60 years ago.

"After the war, there were very few designers. Now there are so many designers around the world, in every country. It is impossible to change the fashions every year, every six months," he told a news conference.

"There are lots of designs that are very beautiful, crazy, fantastic on the eyes, but they are not making fashion for tomorrow. You can see it anywhere... but four or five years later, no fashion."

Cardin also said that when he launched his own label in 1950 he was told that what he was doing was "impossible" and that only belief in himself and obsession carried him through.

"At the time I was told that trying to make what I did was like trying to walk on the moon -- impossible. It was my strategy to believe that one day a man goes up," he said.

"My work was like an addiction. That's why I've been able to do it for so long."

Cardin has become a household name on products around the world from couture clothing to alarm clocks. He was the first Western couturier to turn to Japan as a high fashion market in the late 1950s and later China in 1975.

The designer was expelled from the Chambre Syndicale -- the monitoring body of Haute Couture in Paris -- for launching a ready-to-wear collection in 1959, but was soon reinstated.

服裝設計師皮爾•卡丹週二說，現在的服裝設計師風格轉變得太快，一半是因爲一年兩次的時裝發佈會，使得設計出經久耐看的衣服變得更加困難。

這位88歲的法國時裝界元老在東京參加由某日本百貨商場共同贊助的時裝秀時還說，比起他60年前在這一行起步之時，現在的服裝設計師要出成果更加困難。

他在一個新聞發佈會上說：“戰爭結束那會兒，服裝設計師非常少。而現在全世界的每個國家都有這麼多服裝設計師。要想每年甚至每六個月就轉變一次時裝風格是不可能的。”

“現在的很多服裝設計都很漂亮，很有創意，非常吸引人的眼球，但這些服裝不是面向未來設計的。你到處都可以看見它們，然而四五年過後，這些衣服就不再時尚。”

卡丹還說，當他在1950年開創自己的品牌時，人們對他說他正在做的是“不可能的事情”，但他只相信自己，再加上他對服裝設計的癡迷，幫助他度過了一切。

他說：“那時候別人告訴我，我想要做到的事情就像試圖在月球上行走一樣，是不可能的。但我相信，一個人總有一天會熬出頭，這是我當時的對策。”

“我的工作就像是一個嗜好。這就是我爲什麼能夠堅持做這麼久的原因。”

皮爾卡丹已經成爲全世界家喻戶曉的名字，他所經營的產品從時裝到鬧鐘，一應俱全。他在20世紀50年代末和1975年分別進軍日本和中國的時裝市場，成爲首個開闢日本和中國高級時裝市場的西方時裝設計師。

1959年，這位設計師由於開辦一個成衣時裝發佈會而被巴黎的高級時裝監管機構法國高級時裝協會開除，不過後來他很快就恢復原職。

Vocabulary:

couture: the design and production of expensive and fashionable clothes; these clothes（時裝設計製作；時裝）

couturier: a person who designs, makes and sells expensive, fashionable clothes, especially for women （尤指）女裝設計師；時裝裁縫；女裝商人

Haute Couture: The designing and making of high-quality fashionable clothes by leading fashion houses, esp. to order（高檔時裝業，高級時裝，高級定製時裝）

ready-to-wear: (of clothes) made for the general market and sold through stores rather than made to order for an individual customer; off the rack （服裝）現成的；成衣