expand their businesses. Now they could have many shops in
countries all round the world. As a result, designer fashion
became much more international.
Hanae was very comfortable with this change, because from
the start of her work in designer fashion, she wanted to make
sure that her business was international. She had her first fashion
show in New York in 1965, and in the 1970s she started to have
regular fashion shows in Paris too. The most important part of
Hanae's business has probably always been in Japan, where she
now has over seventy shops. But she also has three shops in Paris,
and customers can buy her clothes in over a hundred places in
the US.
She has also always tried to mix Eastern and Western ideas in
her designs. She designed long dresses in a Western style which
were covered with Japanese writing. She liked to use cloth which
was decorated with Eastern pictures of flowers and birds. She
made suits in a European style, but with collars like the ones
worn by China's Mao Zedong. In Japan, rich women loved her
ideas and found that they could wear her clothes for all
occasions: business, sport and parties. One of Hanae's greatest
moments was the design of a wedding dress for Masako Owada
when she married Prince Naruhito in 1993. But her clothes have
been popular not just with Japanese women, but with many rich
Europeans and Americans as well, including film stars like Grace
Kelly and Sharon Stone and presidents' wives like Nancy Reagan
and Hillary Clinton.
Just like Coco Chanel, Hanae also understood that success in
fashion could lead to success in other industries. Chanel had
shown that when people bought a bottle of perfume, they were
buying more than a liquid with a nice smell. The success of
Chanel No. 5 showed that people wanted perfume with a stylish
image; they wanted perfume with a special name in a special
bottle and they were happy to pay a lot of extra money for this.
Hanae Mori mixes Eastern and Western
ideas in her designs.
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When Hanae Mori produced her own perfume, she knew that
customers would connect the stylish image of her clothes with
the image of the perfume. She also realized that women,
especially women in Japan, would trust her.
'For the first time it's a Japanese woman talking to Japanese
women,' she said.
But unlike Coco Chanel, Hanae Mori wanted to do more
than just sell designer clothes and perfume. She also saw that she
could use her name to sell children's clothes, as well as books and
magazines. In fact, Hanae discovered that her famous name and
her skill in business could help her in many different areas. When
she visited a famous restaurant in Paris, she liked it so much that
she decided to start a similar French restaurant in Tokyo. Of
course, it was a big success.
Hanae's business now makes over $5 billion a year, and in
some ways it seems like a typical international company.
Thousands of people work for Hanae, and her head office is in a
beautiful, modern glass building in the fashionable area of
Omotesando in Tokyo. But her company is still a family business.
Her husband, Ken, was involved in the financial side of her
business from the early days. He died in 1996, but now her sons
and their wives hold important positions in the company. Some
of her grandchildren have also started to work in parts of her
international operation.
Hanae is now over seventy years old, and she still flies regularly
between Tokyo, Paris and New York to check all her different
business interests. But when she decides to leave business life, it
seems certain that the Hanae Mori tradition will continue. Her
ideas will be remembered not just by her family and colleagues,
but also by other successful Japanese designers like Issey Miyake,
Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto. They learned a lot from her
because, with her mix of East and West, Hanae. was the first
Japanese designer to become an international success. She will
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also be remembered by other Japanese businesswomen. Japan has
changed in many ways since Hanae was a bored housewife in the
1940s, but even today there are fewer women in top jobs in Japan
than in other big rich countries. Hanae Mori's life shows
younger businesswomen that it is always possible to reach the
top.
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