October 18, 1981, was the official date of Pierre Caton’s catwalk show.
The venue for the press conference was finally decided at the golden banquet hall of the Capital Hotel.
With intensive preparations, everything seemed to be in order.
However, all good things come slowly.
Often the more important the event, the more extensive the plan, the more likely unexpected problems will arise.
As the saying goes, if the plan cannot be kept up with, when things come to pass, it is simply impossible not to go wrong. Many things that catch people off guard will happen. This is the objective law.
First of all, the superior leaders have objections to the word "model" which is commonly used in the West but is very unfamiliar to Chinese people.
They generally think that "model" and "fashion" are foreign terms, which are a bit vulgar.
So unlike the fashion show held at the National Palace in March,
The superiors issued temporary instructions, requiring that the event must be renamed "costume show".
All "models" should also be changed to "costume performers".
Therefore, the advertising posters and all written promotional materials prepared in advance were in vain and had to be replaced.
You know, this is not an era with inkjet printers and PS software. Most of the promotional items are hand-drawn.
This is true whether it is pictures or artistic calligraphy.
As a result, time was tight and it was difficult for the hired painter to complete the work independently.
This incident forced even Song Huagui, who graduated from the Oil Painting Department, to light up a lamp, boil oil, and go into battle himself, so that he could be considered a winner by Hu Luyuan.
Secondly, something went wrong at the last rehearsal.
The clothes used in this fashion conference were all made in France.
Although the models have long wanted to see what these clothes look like on themselves.
But it wasn't until the last rehearsal two days before the show that they saw the clothes flown in from France.
At that time, the models were simply stunned when they saw these more than a hundred sets of clothing.
First, everyone has never seen such fashion texture.
The male models' suits and dresses are all velvet.
The texture is just like swan feathers.
Very velvet, very rich, feels very good, and comes with a matching bow tie and belt.
What the girls wear are basically evening dresses made of silk.
There are so many colors, some are sea blue, some are purple, some are bright red, some are black, and some are dark blue.
Gorgeous, supple, smooth and gorgeous, really very beautiful.
Second, no one expected to see the styles of clothing.
Men's clothing is okay, but the key point is that the evening dresses worn by the girls are too bold.
In addition to shoulder-baring garments, there are also back-baring garments.
Although these clothes are certainly considered very conservative in Ning Weimin's eyes.
But for others, it can be called a subversive cognitive bombing.
People at that time were very simple in their thinking.
The girls have almost the same idea. They all think that if they show their arms today, they can show their legs tomorrow.
If you dress like this, aren't you a bad student? How can you behave in society?
So many girls are timid.
Among the newcomers who have not officially appeared on the stage, no girl is willing to wear them.
Song Huagui had no choice but to do ideological work for these girls on behalf of the foreign party.
While patiently explaining the meaning of these costumes, I helped everyone understand them uniformly.
At the same time, she also asked the veteran team members to wear them as an example.
He also said that everyone has been practicing for so long just for the day when they will be on stage.
It would be a shame to have to postpone this temporarily, but it would be in vain.
This finally convinced some girls.
But the biggest problem is that the two girls that Pierre Carton is most optimistic about, Qu Xiao and Shi Kaili, are more timid than anyone else and do not agree to it at all.
How can this be done?
There was no point in talking about it, so Song Huagui had no choice but to let Ning Weimin try to talk about it.
It must be said that Ning Weimin is quite smart.
He did not persuade directly, but calmly chatted with the two girls as if they were bored.
After chatting like this, he gradually figured out the psychology of the two girls.
Ning Weimin discovered that their biggest concern was not that they were ashamed to wear such fashions.
Rather, I am afraid that my acquaintances will know, and I am especially worried that my family will know about it and I will be scolded when I go home.
Ning Weimin said to the two girls, "Don't worry, ordinary people have no chance to see this kind of performance. We implement the three no's policy internally. No reports, no photos, no videos."
"The reporters who came that day were all foreigners. With your appearance in such clothes, at most, only foreign newspapers would publish a few photos, not even Reference News."
"Xiao Shi, you are the son of a soldier, so you should know the confidentiality level. Even if your parents are in the army, you can't see them at that level..."
As soon as they mentioned the effect, the expressions of the two girls immediately softened, and they were obviously relieved.
So in order to completely dispel all their hesitations, Ning Weimin began to use sweet words to deceive her and to praise her for free.
It is said that they have become the most temperamental and beautiful girls in the team now.
They also said that Pierre Cardin always praised them behind their backs as the best and most charming models in the entire model team.
Therefore, they are very likely to go abroad and become world-famous models and national treasure-level beauties.
If one day, they stand on the international fashion stage, they will probably blind foreigners...
Think about it, these two girls are not very old, one is nineteen and the other is sixteen.
I have never heard anyone compliment them on how beautiful they are.
How can we resist Ning Weimin's incitement?
So they were flattered and confused, and they all agreed to change clothes.
In this way, the final result was not bad, and most people overcame their psychological barriers.
Only two of all the girls couldn't overcome it and chose to quit.
But the costume troubles are not over yet.
The clothes cut according to the figures of European models turned out to be too wide for Chinese models. Pierre Carton and the designer Andre Olivier who came from France made adjustments after urgent discussions.
Hats and accessories can only be rematched.
Some clothes were fastened with pins, and some were simply sewn tightly at the back, and they used time to change the size overnight.
It was not easy to finalize the clothing sizes and model list.
But the day of stopping rehearsals and letting the models rest went bad again.
Because for all models, nervousness is inevitable.
Especially this time is completely different from the time I went on stage in March.
The performance venue this time is the Capital Hotel, not a small hall in the Palace of Nationalities.
The venue covers an area of 2,000 square meters, with golden columns on both sides. It has a strong palace-style architectural style and is magnificent.
What kind of formation is this?
If you look closely at the origins of these models, you can see that almost all of them are young losers from the lower class, vegetable sellers, brick bakers, carpet makers...
Their psychological quality can be imagined.
The key point is that this time it is not a purely internal performance. The Ministry of Economy and Trade and the Ministry of Textiles have jointly invited many foreign media.
Even before the final disbandment, Song Huagui gave everyone his last solemn instructions.
"You must tell the truth. You must tell the foreign reporters truthfully what you do and where you live."
Think about it, these days, who among the average person has the opportunity to come into contact with foreign media?
As soon as I went home to rest, not to mention the newbies, even the experienced old people started to feel a little worried.
Reality also follows Murphy's law, and the worst-case scenario will always happen. Something happened early in the morning on the 18th.