14 WWD, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2007

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Pierre Paulin on the Function of Design French Quarters

By Robert Murphy core and learn to please the public.
NEW YORK — There are certain things
PARIS — Pierre Paulin, at 80, is one of the WWD: How did your collaboration with that just go hand in hand: Lucy and
great old men of design, having influenced Georges Pompidou come about? Desi, billboards and Times Square,
his trade with creations such as his Ribbon P.P.: Pompidou wanted something mod- boeuf Bourguignon and pinot noir.
and Mushroom chairs. French presidents ern that would inspire the French to em- France and fashion are another. So
Georges Pompidou and François Mitterrand brace the future. He thought the country it’s not surprising that New York’s
both enlisted him to decorate the Elysées was hemmed in by its traditions. His team French Institute Alliance Française
Palace. As an exhibit of his furniture opens looked in the foreign magazines and decid- has named the month of November
today and runs through Dec. 16 at Azzedine ed on me because my name came up a lot. Fashion Month, with a roster of events
Alaïa’s gallery here, Paulin sat down with And Madame Pompidou loved my style. dedicated to all things la mode. What
WWD to discuss the vagaries of design and is intriguing, though, is that this marks
pore over his storied career. He also re- WWD: You decorated the presidential pal- the first time the organization has
vealed he’s starting to work again. “I started ace like a spaceship. Was that your idea of embarked on such an endeavor. Even

PHOTO BY WILLIAM KLEIN/WALKER ART CENTER

sketching again a few years ago,” he said. the future? though FIAF has held the occasional
“I’m going to work with a P.P.: [The decoration] was fashion event here and there, in its 109
new manufacturer soon. But Pierre Paulin the solution to the param- years, it has never before plunged into
it’s still top secret.” eters imposed on me. The so large-scale a survey of style.
restrictions dictated my What got the party started? Less
WWD: What drew you to choices. They told me I than a year ago, Lili Chopra, director
design? couldn’t touch the walls and of programming at the institute, invited
Pierre Paulin: I had two they told me I couldn’t make Pamela Golbin, curator of the Musée
uncles I admired. One was any noise. So everything was de la Mode et du Textile, to give a talk
a sculptor and the other an created in a factory before it on Cristobal Balenciaga. (Golbin had
engineer. I started out want- was installed. organized last year’s big Balenciaga
ing to be like the first one retrospective in Paris and written the
and I ended up being more WWD: Did Pompidou like accompanying book.) The two soon A scene from “In & Out of Fashion.”
like the second. I sculpted it? struck up a friendship which led to
for three years and was P.P.: I think the president brainstorms about other possible William Klein, with appearances by
forced to quit when I had was a traditionalist, some- events at FIAF. “Then Pamela had this Jean Paul Gaultier and agnès b.’s Agnès
an accident. In any case, one who loved modernity notion of doing [James Lipton’s] ‘Inside Troublé. And then, of course, there are
I didn’t feel like an artist. without really knowing what the Actors Studio’ but for fashion,” flicks like “Funny Face” and “And God
I was too concerned with it was. Madame Pompidou says Chopra. Enter this month’s Created Woman” starring, respectively,
PHOTO BY DOMINQUE MAITRE

practical problems. told me the Queen of “Fashion Talks with Pamela Golbin,” Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot.
England and the ruler of a series of conversations between Chopra explains that she chose these to
WWD: Did starting out by Saudi Arabia loved it. As for the curator and a guest designer that show “how cinema influences fashion,”
sculpting influence your ap- the rest, I have no idea. take place on Fridays. “We want to adding with a laugh that the bikini
proach to design? establish a transatlantic conversation,” wouldn’t be where it is without Bardot.
P.P.: Not at all. Art and de- WWD: The furniture you Golbin adds. Last week, she spoke to Jean Seberg’s in there, too, for her pixie
sign are completely differ- created for Mitterrand was Véronique Nichanian, men’s wear turn in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless.”
ent. Art is a calling from completely different, not at designer at Hermès. Next up will be “For us, she completely revolutionized
God. But design is a career. all Space Age. Bruno Frisoni of Roger Vivier on Nov. the haircut,” Chopra notes.
You have contracts and engage- P.P.: Mitterrand was even more 30 and, on Dec. 7, Olivier Theyskens If you can’t attend one of the
ments. You must respect your traditional than Pompidou. of Nina Ricci. “We wanted to choose above scheduled events, no matter.
relationship to industry. It in- He wanted traditional things. someone representing women, one Fashion Month at FIAF also includes
volves daily life. When you are in the service of for men and one for accessories,” says a daily (and free) exhibit, “A Woman’s
power, you try to express the Chopra, explaining how they decided Obsession,” by photographer Chantal
WWD: How did you get started? needs of the leader. on the final three. “They all offer Stoman. It’s the first Stateside stop
P.P.: France was in a state of de- different experiences. And Pamela for the exhibition, which explores
struction after the war. I was part WWD: Do you find that design has has intimate relationships with these the Japanese fascination with luxury
of a group of people who were devel- changed a lot today? designers — she really knows in detail brands like Chanel, after gallery
oping “reconstruction” products. Products P.P.: Not in industries like cars and air- all their work and lives.” rounds in Tokyo and Paris. And Chopra
that were more sober, somewhat in the craft. But in furniture it’s changed entire- Guests at FIAF are getting peeks promises that this won’t be the last
manner of the Scandinavian look. ly. Before it was industrial, today it’s more at the lives of other designers, too. In time the series takes place; she hopes
artisanal. And designers take themselves addition to the lectures, the center’s to make it an annual event. “There
WWD: Were you successful right away? for artists. That amuses me. An artist who weekly Cinéma Tuesdays screenings are are so many different angles in which
P.P.: Not at all! My first concern was sur- develops furniture that is totally uncom- taking on the theme of fashion icons; last we can really talk about fashion,” she
vival. No one in France was interested in fortable and unusable — it’s astonishing. week, for instance, the lineup included says. And she already has her eye on
the type of thing I was doing. There was a A designer isn’t an artist. We are in the two back-to-back documentaries on what she’d like to tackle next: “the
very small elite interested in similar things. service of the public. We are not meant to Yves Saint Laurent. Other selections relationship between fashion and
France seemed so dusty and antique next to serve ourselves. will include 1998’s “In & Out of performance,” she says.
the Scandinavian countries, which were liv- Fashion,” on the life of photographer — Venessa Lau
ing in a totally new manner. It took France WWD: What about the incredible prices
30 years to get design. being paid for design today?
P.P.: I don’t understand why you’d collect
WWD: What was your first big break? things like that. It’s a self-contained mar-
P.P.: A Dutch firm, Artifort, contacted me. ket that I don’t understand. But maybe it’s
Developing Nations Point to U.S. as Doha Roadblock
That was 1958. Hans Knoll had arrived in something that will detach itself from the By John Zarocostas there cannot be a resolution in ag-
France. I was crazy for Knoll. It was the real métier in the future. riculture,” Nath said at the end of
first time I’d seen a type of modernity that GENEVA — Trade and agriculture a meeting of ministers and senior
resonated with me. There was Herman WWD: Are there any contemporary design- ministers from developing nations, officials from the influential G20
Miller and Charles and Ray Eames, for ers you admire? led by South Africa, India and Brazil, group, which includes Argentina,
whom I had the greatest admiration be- P.P.: There’s a young German with a renewed their criticism on Thursday Brazil, China, Egypt, Indonesia and
cause they were freer; Knoll was somewhat Yugoslavian name? that the Bush administration is im- South Africa.
bourgeois. Ray and Charles Eames are the peding the Doha global trade talks “Any attempt to put the blame on
greatest designers of the 20th century in WWD: Konstantin Grcic? over slashing farm subsidies, espe- the difficulties in the negotiations
my estimation. P.P.: Yes, that’s right. He’s emblematic of cially on cotton. on developing countries is mis-
the hope for a new generation. And there’s “The U.S. is the biggest subsidizer placed,” said Celso Amorim, Brazil’s
WWD: People called your style Pop. Was it a an Englishman. of the cotton sector; it is very disturb- foreign minister. “After all, this is
reflection of what was going on in the plas- ing and worrying for us that the U.S. an agricultural round, and we have
tic arts? WWD: Jasper Morrison? has rejected the draft text of the [agri- to see what happens in agriculture
P.P.: It wasn’t derived from Pop Art. That P.P.: Exactly. He won’t culture] chairman [Crawford Falconer in order to make our own moves in
arrived in France much later. I was Pop be- transform the world. of New Zealand] of addressing the dis- other areas.”
fore Pop! My aesthetic was determined by He’s classical, and he tortions in the cotton sector,” Lulama Ministers from the developing na-
technical choices. It was a consequence. I doesn’t try to astonish, Xingwana, South Africa’s minister of tions again stressed that what they
did a chair that was covered with a swim- which I often tried to do. agriculture, told reporters. “We have are prepared to offer in lowering
suit material. It was somewhat inspired But he searches, like I tried not seen any proposal or alternative tariffs on industrial goods, which in-
by existing forms. But it led to me finding to do, to serve a public. That’s that has come from the U.S. on how it cludes textiles and apparel, would be
forms that were more personal. It wasn’t our function as designers. will approach the cotton distortions. proportionate to what they receive in
easy. For a long time, I was ashamed of the It is a matter of grave concern to us.” agriculture from rich countries.
Ribbon chair because it was so provoca- The U.S. has rejected terms pro- The group also chided Washington
tive. You have to understand, I’m posed in July that recommended an 82 for its refusal to extend President
part Swiss and German as well percent cut in cotton subsidies. Kamal Bush’s trade promotion authority,
as Northern Italian and Nath, India’s minister for commerce which gives him the power to negoti-
French. It took me and industry, said cotton is a make or ate trade deals without amendments
a while to shake One of Paulin’s most break issue for the talks. from Congress. That authority expired
off my Puritanical famous designs. “Without a resolution on cotton, in June.