Even the well-known designers Jean Desses, the forties’ “Master of Chiffon”; George Stavropoulos, a contemporary of Dior; and Jimmy Galanis in the United States today, have been unrecognized as Greeks. But all that is changing. A growing industry, fashion consciousness and talented designers combine to make a promising future in Greek fashion.
“It is primarily a summer market, and a good one, although young and unsophisticated,” says Leslie Fletcher of John Lewis Department Stores of England. Fletcher was one of more than seven hundred and fifty buyers who attended the 10th Hellenic Fashion Fair held in Athens in June. In three days, the eighty-five Greek exhibitors received more than $20 million worth of orders, making the fair “one thousand percent successful” in the words of George Koutsoubelis, President of the Hellenic Fashion Centre, organizer of the fair. In 1978 Greece exported $752.5 million worth of textiles and garments (198,000 tons). Four-fifths of this went to Common Market countries, with Germany’s 50,000 tons topping the list. Other European countries, Eastern Europe, the USA and the Arab world made up the other fifth. As a new market, sales to the USA in 1978 were $8 million, double the sales of 1977.
At the beginning of the 1970s, many European countries began looking for other manufacturing sources. Encouraged by the success of some Greek designers, the Greek manufacturers shifted from cheap items ifUo fashion garments, while the Far Eastern countries, with cheaper labour costs, began
to steal the T-shirt market. Imported machinery and technological improvements boosted the change. Since then, in the words of designer Yannis Tseklenis, “Most Europeans have been wearing garments made in Greece, but under another label.”
Fifty years ago there were only ten companies, primarily family businesses, and most of the several thousand companies in Greece today started less than ten years ago. Since 1970 profits and investments have increased as much as ten times. Garment and textile factories employ more than 125,000 people — or forty percent of all industrial workers. The two industries account for one-fourth of all Greece’s exports, and contribute more than five percent to the GNP. It is one of the most dynamic industries in Greece today.
There are thousands of boutiques in Athens, and the prices give an indication of the value of fashion to the modern Greek. Garments are sold at four to five times the export cost. Due to better world-wide communication, the change in fashion consciousness from ten years ago is “like night and day,” according to designers. “People don’t like cheap clothes any more,” says Takis Tsirozidis, Athenian knitwear manufacturer. “They want better articles and they don’t mind about the price,” In 1977 Greek people spent 12.8 percent of their income on clothing. Piraiki-Patraiki, a top cotton manufacturing company, has an annual turnover of $200 million, in thirty-eight million metres of fabric. Only one-seventh of that is exported. The internal market is good. And, a representative added, they get better prices from .Greek buyers.
But there are some peculiarities. Many manufacturers import fabric for their export garments. Fabric manufacturers, on the other hand, prefer to export rather than sell to local buyers because foreign markets are larger and more reliable. “And the industry which is making the money hasn’t encouraged Greek design talent,” adds Tseklenis.
“Cotton prices in Greece are too high because of bad organization and the production is on too small a scale,” says George Iliopoulos of Ilco. “They’re behind on fashion, and they can’t deliver on time,” says Nick Candiotis of Gakis, S.A. Gakis is an example of a company seeking to stabilize itself with advertising and marketing techniques, and the assistance of a Paris fashion consultant, Dominique Peelers. The company had a 67 percent annual growth rate for four years without marketing. Now they sell one million pieces a year for $5 million.
“There’s no connection between production and marketing,” says Elias Mourtoutsos of Bieten. “They just go to the exhibitions and expect to get business.” Bieten is exclusively an export company, and its fashion consultants include Juan Coty of USA. “Greek fashion has a good international reception, yet maintains something Greek,” continues Mourtoutsos. “Unfortunately, many Greek products are sold under foreign labels, because that’s what the foreign buyers want.”
Yannis Tseklenis, a Greek designer with licensing offices in New York, is working to make ‘Greek Fashion’ known. He says Greece has wasted a billion dollars of goods without getting the Greek image across. His own spring 1980 showing will be held in New York in October. “Those who come to Greece now come because they get a good price, they don’t care about brand names, or they steal the product and relabel it.” In addition to basing his operations in Greece, and despite the added trouble and expense to his international clientele, Tseklenis was instrumental in organizing the first fashion showing of Greek design in Athens, in 1970. He is also undertaking the management of a Greek Design Centre in order to combine Greek talent with the manufacturer’s needs. Fashion products — fabrics, accessories, decorative objects — will take their inspiration from traditional Greek culture. The result? ‘Greek Design’ will become known wherever Greek products are sold. In addition, there will be a coordination among products, and international promotion can be improved. “It’s not only out of sympathy for the struggling Greek designer (most of whom work out of a little room, with a boutique around the corner) but also to create a better flow of buyers in Greece,” says Tseklenis. It also prepares Greece for the days ahead when labour costs will increase prohibitively. But if the Greek Name is known by then, manufacturers here can import their garments from other countries and put on their own label. “Gucci wouldn’t be making a penny if the name were not well-known,” he says. Examine all the Name Garments in the United States (where labeling laws are stricter) and you will find all the different countries they come from.
What about Greece as a future fashion centre? “It can become an important place for fashion, though not a centre like Paris or Milan,” says Tseklenis.
