TWO PIERRES: The store at number 27 Rue Saint-Honoré was packed. A crowd had gathered for the latest from Pierre Cardin: a new collection by his protégé Pierre Courtial.
Though Cardin has fostered the careers of many fashion designers, most famously Jean Paul Gaultier, it was the first time he has sponsored a collection by an emerging talent — a new model he plans to replicate in other European locations.
Courtial’s colorful suits and minimalist dresses with scalloped or jagged edges were scattered about the room. Black sandals with hot pink laces were glued to the ceiling.
The young designer, who comes from a village in the south of France, had started out in engineering despite an interest in sewing and fashion. “I didn’t know anybody from this milieu which seemed closed and inaccessible to me,” he said.
But, with the encouragement of friends who thought he’d be better off ditching the computer and expressing himself through design, he signed up for the École de Condé, a design school in Paris, and soon joined Cardin’s studio as an intern.
“I understood right away that he was quite extraordinary, he himself didn’t believe me,” said Nello De Lucia, who heads the design studio and has worked
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