Didier Grumbach

The fashion guru

DIDIER GRUMBACH MADE PARIS THE FASHION CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, AND HE IS KNOWN AS A “FASHION MAGICIAN”, THE WORLD OVER. GRUMBACH’S EVERY SENTENCE IS WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD.


Why is fashion so important for the world?
I view fashion differently. I think fashion is an expression of power. For example, Hitler tried to bring haute couture into Berlin because the effect of fashion is a lot more than the effect of industry. I believe our relationship with Turkey is very important in the name of fashion. Our industry is organized in a strange way: president of this, director of that. This is not such a bad thing, but fashion is not comprised of industry only. Brands must be fully open to debate, however, the bureaucracy of our institutions do not allow this. This leads to a dilemma.

What were the conditions that created the Yves Saint Laurent brand?
All the fashion brands known by everybody today started business as haute couture. When Saint Laurent started the business in 1962, it was the symbol of luxury. In fact, for many people with exceptional skills, competing in the international arena, and who entered the haute-couture calendar, being famous is almost inevitable. In the case of Saint Laurent, the brand was built on a very strong creativity and it managed to become institutionalized due to the haute-couture system.

It is of course difficult to create a brand such as Saint Laurent overnight, but Turkey has ambitions along this direction. How do you evaluate the goal of making Istanbul into a fashion city?
The fashion industry is important for Istanbul’s today and for the future. Your ready-to-wear industry has a serious potential to support this as well. There are Turkish designers who have had fashion shows in Paris and have become successful. However, there currently is not a link between the ready-to-wear industry anddesigners. Creating a brand is a very long process. There is no similarity between a brand like Yves Saint Laurent and a brand of sportswear. Everything is different from production to management and identity. If we manage to include Turkey within the whole system and the industry and designers work hand in hand, Istanbul’s place and importance in the fashion world will improve very much in five or six years.

Is there a Turkish brand you recognize and know of today?
Dice Kayek is consulting many Japanese ready-to-wear companies today. Not only I, but many many people have heard about them. I must also count Hüseyin Çağlayan, who is talked about a lot in Paris.

What do you think is the relationship between fashion and brands?
Brands have existed in the fashion world since the existence of original creation. For example, there was no such thing as a brand until the mid-19th century. Brands came to France with freedom; that is with the republic. There were no brands until the Republic because the palace directed fashion, just like everything else. Fashion had strict rules in those periods. It is interesting that the first brand that appeared in Paris was an English brand. In other words, the first couturier of Paris was an Englishman. A Couturier is an inventor, he is after new things, and therefore he is accepted as an artist. In Paris, we create brands on top of original creativity. If there is nothing original, there is no brand. There are two types of brands in France: Griffe (label) and marque (brand). Griffe is tied to a person and his capability. Marque, on the other hand, is a brand that we have seen in sportswear. That is why we do not compare personal brands in France with, for example, a sportswear brand. For us, Chanel and Adidas are not the same.
All the prestige brands are avant-garde to a certain point. That is, real brands are born out of creativity, out of the creative power of one person, one name. Hüseyin Çağlayan is a very good example for this. People like him take a very long time to grow, with lots of difficulty; after some time, they become an industry by themselves. Brands start with creativity and ends in industry. Our work is not art; we are part of the business world.

Are creativity of the designer and the sales focus of the business world not in conflict?
Brands are full of creative power at the starting stage. If the designer wants to make a living with this, however, he must know to curb his creative power after a certain stage. When a brand starts to establish itself and therefore starts making money, the designer must be less creative. If you are continuously in a mood of reaction and creation, you can never be part of the ready-to-wear industry. That is why a brand is the blending of two different characters. Generally, the two different characters are represented by two different people: one who does not get involved with the commercial aspects of the business, and the other who adapts his partner’s creativity to the needs of the market. It is really difficult for these two people to make a good fit, and there are very few who have achieved this. Every ten years, there can only be ten new brands, at most. In reality, local brands are never global. If you sell very well in France, you cannot sell in New York.
Is there no way for brands to be global? If your product is ordinary, you can make a lot of local sales with good marketing. For you to distribute a product like this globally, your price must be cheap enough to compete with India. Another method is to enter the global market with a product with international value added. The value you can add to the product are creativity and brand equity. Creativity is a different game, but what is called brand equity is really needed. Achieving brand equity is a long process. For example, Dice Kayek has just finished her 12th year and she still struggles. They just started making their name known in a real way. That is why, as I mentioned, one must distinguish the industrial brands from brands borne out of creativity. These two processes are entirely different, but there can be common points. What Turkey needs today is making industry and creativity meet.

Will it make it easier for Turkish designers and brands, if Turkey becomes an EU member?
I believe Turkey is part of Europe, whether she is an EU member or not. Turkey is not Asia, but is Europe. Hüseyin Çağlayan and Dice Kayek are already EU members. In fact, many fashion people in Paris are not French; they are different people who came from different parts of Europe. On the other hand, Turkey is needed in Europe. If you are asking whether entering the EU will open doors for you, yes it will. The Europe-Mediterranean region is a whole and it must know how to compete with Asia on one side, and America on the other. There are many reasons for this, but I think the most important one is its cultural variety that is reflected as a richness onto the whole. Turkey is one of the most important parts of this variety. If Europe is successful in its fashion struggle against America, this will be because of the endless cultural accumulation of countries such as Italy, England, France, and Turkey. Turkey has a very deep history and culture, as Hüseyin Çağlayan also describes very well with his designs. Istanbul is a city, which deserves the definition “world capital” in a real way. Of course we cannot change the capital at this point!

So we cannot move the capital of fashion from Paris to Istanbul?
The world is getting smaller and Paris is no longer in France; it is a global city just like New York. In that case, why would we want another one when we have New York or Paris? What must be done is for a Turkish designer to have fashion shows in Paris and the Turkish industry to support him. In other words, one must not bring fashion to Istanbul, but must bring Istanbul to fashion, because Istanbul is already a part of Europe. Executives of Turkish companies and fashion designers in Paris must have dialogues more often and enhance cooperation. For fashion designers to make their voices heard better, they must be present in Paris, smell its air. It is not enough for ready-to-wear industrialists to get together in a different city every year, we must get together more often and consistently; because 2005 is as close as tomorrow.

You said that French brands are losing their locality. Does this make them less powerful?
What I meant was that brands such as Chanel, Dior are now global. Just like Hüseyin Çağlayan belongs to the world, Chanel also belongs to the world now. There is no place for local brands anymore; every brand must be international. That is why the term “French Brand” must not be used anymore. We need brands in fashion, because fashion brands disappear fast. No woman dresses like her mother. Fashion brands are different from other brands. Opposed to the others, life gets more difficult for fashion brands as they get older. In fashion, old brands are not valid. You have no friends who buy Valentino anymore. Therefore, if we want to protect our industry, we must support new brands. When we consider that it takes ten, twenty years to establish a new brand, we must support young brands which have made a name in the international arena, especially now when we do not have much time.

We are trying to support our young designers in every way, as the Turkish ready-to-wear industry....
Yes, I know, and you are doing the right thing. For example, you invited Jean Paul Knott to the IAF (International Apparel Federation) Congress as a speaker. He was the assistant of Yves Saint Laurent for 12 years and is now selling in his name in Japan and Europe. Why should he not have a collection in Turkey as well? His credibility in Japan, America, and Europe can be used for the products of Turkish companies. Turkey does not currently have an international brand, and you can cooperate with designers such as Knott, who need the support and have a name. There are two things you must do: First, creating a brand and making it consistently powerful within a cooperation with the industry; secondly, cooperating with new brands with a certain history, and entering the American and European distribution channels using these brands.

Do you think we have a design spirit coming from the past? For example, the IAF logo on your lapel is a traditional Turkish embroidery symbol.
Spirit is one of the most important elements necessary for design, and maybe what we need in Europe is Anatolian spirit. Maybe we are looking for the lost message from Anatolia, who knows? When Brazil moved to Paris, and first Brazilian designers started appearing in Paris, we felt that something missing was completed. Maybe this is valid for you as well.



Head of France Fashion Federation
Didier Grumbach, who is referred to as a “fashion Magician” was born in Paris in 1937. He started his working career at the C. Mendes Group as General Manager in 1963. He founded Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche in 1968 with Pierre Bergé. He founded ‘Paris Collections Inc.’ with C. Mendes in 1967 and ‘Creators and Manufacturers’ in 1971, which has brought together the young designers of that time, like Emmanuelle Khanh, Ossie Clark, J.-C. De Castelbajac, Issey Miyake, Roland Chakkal, with the industrialists. He became Head of Thierry Mugler in 1978. He was brought to the head of Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche USA and Yves Saint Laurent Inc. in 1980. In 1986, he was appointed the Marketing Director at the France Fashion Institute (Institut Francais de la Mode), Study Director in 1989 and Dean in 1997. Grumbach, was appointed the Head of Haute-Couture Development Commission in 1992 and was in the same year appointed the Minister of Industry. His book named, ‘The History of Fashion’ was published in 1993. Grumbach, became the Head of the Chamber of Couture Schools in 1998, and has been carrying-out his duties as the Head of the France Fashion Federation and Chamber of Couture Schools since 1998.

The man who opened a new era in fashion: Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent was born in Algeria on 1 August 1936. He drew attention with his interest in clothes; his designs were published in the world famous Vogue magazine when he was 17. The following year, when he collected three out of the four awards in a design contest in Paris, he found himself in the Christian Dior design house. When Christian Dior died suddenly in 1957, Saint Laurent, after only working there three years, was appointed the head of the fashion house. Coco Chanel honored him with the statement, "My spiritual successor".
Saint Laurent joined the Algerian army a few years later because of the mandatory military service. He learned upon his return to Paris that he was fired from the job of head designer. He decided to set up his own fashion house. YSL created one of the world’s biggest fashion brands in a short time. His name was equivalent to haute-couture. Being considered a fashion icon, Yves Saint Laurent started destroying the rules of fashion one by one. He created his own style with flowing and sparkling designs. YSL created the ready-to-wear brand name Rive Gauche (Red River) in 1966. Not only Saint Laurent’s creations, but also his statements were interesting: "Beauty? Beauty is unimportant. More noteworthy is the ability to turn someone on. Everything we feel is subjective. I personally prefer a body gesture to a look." Saint Laurent did not avoid doing what he declared. He used colors that are considered unmatching, , he preferred sparkling colors instead of shadows, and entered his haute coutures into public bazaars. With these characteristics, Yves Saint Laurent managed to change the dressing habits of ordinary women, and not only the high society who follow fashion shows closely. In 1983, his retrospective exhibition wasplaced in the Metropolitan Art Museum,becoming the first living designer who had this honor. When he declared that he was withdrawing from the fashion stage in 2002, it created a devastating effect in the fashion world. With YSL ending haute-couture activities and being marketed as a ready-to-wear brand by Gucci, an era in fashion history was closed.