When Pierre Cardin took Hong Kong by storm and made a model out of a photographer
- The French designer’s 1968 charity runway show at the Hong Kong Hilton showed hems ‘shorter than the rest of Paris’
- At a casting event ahead of the show, Cardin plucked a photographer from the press pack to model the men’s collection
“World fashion premier in HK,” ran a South China Morning Post headline on August 18, 1968. “Pierre Cardin is bringing his latest Paris collection to Hongkong next month,” the story continued, describing it as “the most exciting fashion affair of the year”.
“Cardin will be showing men’s as well as women’s fashions and will bring two male and two female models with him. A few of our top local models will be chosen by Cardin when he arrives,” the report said.
The collection was expected to include the designer’s “revolutionary new range of moulded, ready-to-wear clothes” and hems “shorter than the rest of Paris”.
Cardin would arrive with his business manager, Nicole Alphand, “who has herself been placed several times on the list of Ten best dressed women in the world”, according to a September 12 Post article.
Wearing “a double-breasted tweed suit, pink shirt and Paisley patterned tie”, Cardin gave a press conference on September 14, predicting the “nude look” would be the next big thing in fashion.
“I design clothes because they are needed,” he said. “Food comes first, but after that, fashion. Dresses are a necessary part of one’s social life.”
