Pierre Cardin, fortune through licenses
Pierre Cardin in June 2019 © AFP - BERTRAND GUAY
Text by: Aabla Jounaïdi Follow
2 min
Pioneer of avant-garde and daring fashion in the 1960s, Pierre Cardin is also one of the most famous French people in the world.
For good reason, “Pierre Cardin” is also a brand that is available in 800 products.
Particularly in Asia, a market that he was one of the first French fashion representatives to explore.
From the belt to the bath towels, including water bottles and perfumes, this strategy made its fortune, but also somewhat dulled the prestige of the brand.
To the point of becoming a textbook case taught in marketing training.
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This phenomenon even has a name: "cardinization".
A trivialization of the brand under the effect of too many licenses.
At the antipodes of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton or Hermès who play on rarity and exclusivity.
However, Pierre Cardin claimed it loud and clear as the guarantee of the solidity of his company.
As a guarantee of personal independence too.
Be that as it may, the sale of his licenses in a hundred countries made him a precursor of globalization from the 1970s.
Thirty licenses assigned to China
Pierre Cardin bath towels, bed linens, ties, umbrellas, perfumes and even strollers are found everywhere, from Brazil to Korea via China, where in 1978 he was one of the first French couturiers to break through.
In fact, it was in China that in 2009 he sold about thirty of his licenses for a whopping 200 million euros.
That year, his personal fortune was estimated at more than 600 million euros.
►Also read:
Pierre Cardin, fashion and business genius, is dead
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