Pierre Cardin Headlines Fashion Festival in Montenegro
Pierre Cardin was back on the runway Saturday night as the headline attraction of the fourth International Fashion Festival in Porto Montenegro, a luxury resort destination eager to affirm itself as a cultural hub, too.
The Paris-based fashion house paraded about 80 designs for women and men at a vast open-air event space that also displays vintage submarines. About 1,500 people attended the two-day, invitation-only event, including local elite, high-end tourists, government officials, and such celebrities as Montenegrin football hero Predrag Mijatović; Dijana Djoković, mother of tennis superstar Novak Djoković, and Mexican model and actress Patricia Gloria Contreras, dressed in a sparkly Balmain minidress.
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Zoran Radonjic
The festival, which attracted such sponsors as Hublot and Samsung, was also broadcast on national television in Montenegro, a small country prized for its rugged mountains, medieval villages and spectacular Adriatic coastline.
On Friday night, before Sanja Matijević, Jaric and Balestra paraded their designs on a long, raised catwalk, Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, president and artistic director of Pierre Cardin, said he was impressed with how Porto Montenegro is developing with its spotless pedestrian-only streets, impressive array of fashion stores stocking famous French and Italian brands, and visitors and locals who like to dress up for any outing.
While Cardin does not have any retail operations in Montenegro, some of its licensed products, including menswear and eyewear, are sold in the region, Basilicati-Cardin noted. Local tourism officials treated the Cardin crew, Contreras and other VIP attendees to guided tours of the historic, walled cities of Budva and Kotor, boat rides through the scenic Boka, and lavish meals at popular beach resorts and the swanky Regent hotel with its vistas of mega yachts.
The house of Cardin has been exceptionally busy