7 ms·

Pierre Cardin was a pioneer in licensing his name and brand to pretty much anyone, so much so that it ceased to be a demarcator of quality but instead signalled

Pierre Cardin was a pioneer in licensing his name and brand to pretty much anyone, so much so that it ceased to be a demarcator of quality but instead signalled the opposite. The lesson here, if you want to safeguard a legacy, is to never stop caring about quality and your customers. People with no regard for your reputation will think nothing of destroying it to make a quick buck.

jpcooper 6y ago
Pierre Cardin’s net worth was apparently 800 million USD according to a quick internet search. That is quite a few bucks. Maybe Pierre Cardin has a couple of lessons to teach us.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Once you get above 2 million it doesn't matter (2 million is enough to shed 70K per year which is widely thought to be the threshold where more money doesn't improve wellbeing). If money is the motivator after that then you are in a race you can't win.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - flyinglizard 6y ago
    That 70k figure sounds arbitrary and very, very low. It is not even a living wage in many western cities.
    - laputan_machine 6y ago
      What cities are you living in?! £70k GBP is an insane salary, $70k USD equates to £52k, which is also _well_ above the UK average salary. Same applies to EU cities too. Also, if you are curious, I believe this is the study people frequently cite: https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_high_income_improves_evaluation_August2010.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        IIRC from my cost of living calculations early this year, 52k GBP is barely enough for a couple with a small child to survive in London.
        cassepipe 6y ago
        Yes but that's three persons. Unless it was assumed that the typical profile here is a pater familias with a housewife.
        TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Perhaps not typical, but quite nice if you can pull it off. I actually refused an offer to move to London (despite initial excitement) for a salary slightly larger than mentioned above, because it would've been a significant quality of life downgrade. Even if both partners work, being able to stay above water on a single salary does wonders for the peace of mind.
        flyinglizard 6y ago
        In the context of planning retirement with perpetual income coming from a lump sum, you have to take family into account (because that’s what most people end up with).
        laputan_machine 6y ago
        Yeah, I can believe that, but that is 1 city, what number constitutes 'many'?
      - mytailorisrich 6y ago
        The claim was that 70k is when additional money does not improve wellbeing, not whether this is more than most people earn. Obviously the number has to be quite higher than the average income. I live in the UK and I can assure you than earning £52k or £70k a year is not an insane salary and is certainly way below the income at which money no longer makes a difference. Or this is £50k-70k after tax and per person in the household. In which case this means earning well in excess of £200k a year for both parents for a family of four, which is probably more realistic but also probably means this only applies to the 1%...
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      https://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/09/study-says-$75,000-can-buy-happiness.html https://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/09/study-says-$75,000... >and very, very low. The median wage in the US is $36,000, less than half of that.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - cassepipe 6y ago
      What you say is crazy. I live in Paris with 12k a year, no holidays and not comfortable but it _is_ a living wage, the minimum wage actually. I can imagine needing the triple of that if I took holidays and treated myself to nice restaurants and bought fancy clothes. But that's still well below 70k. So if you are the kind of person that consider 70k very low, you are also the kind of person I would remorselessly take the money from.
      - flyinglizard 6y ago
        Paris is a big metro. I’m sure you don’t live in the expensive parts. And what about a family? Retirement? Vacations? Owning your own place? A quick search shows the median salary in Paris is about 50k euros, which is roughly 60k USD. But being on median income is usually not that great anyway.
        jrimbault 6y ago
        Not cassepipe, but also currently living on (less than) minimum wage, in an expensive part of Paris, France. I'm cooking, coding, reading, watching youtube. This year has been "great" for me. Of course I would have liked more comfort, some foods I can't affort but, but I've got a good bed, a good chair, an excellent desk, good cooking knives, an ereader with a practically infinite supply of free books, computers and hard drives (hidden) everywhere in my 20m². I write the kind of code I like to write, I'm not accountable to anyone. (not anonymous you can try to name search me to cross check) I estimate I'd need about 30k€/y to be able to not skip on anything I'd want to do. (usual disclaimers apply: young-ish single man living alone, never had health issues, with no desire to live in any other way, etc)
        cassepipe 6y ago
        Actually you are right as Paris itself is quite small and quite expensive. But Paris is a five minutes walk away so I guess it's fair to say I live in Paris. My point was not arguing on how great I live but that beyond the triple of what I live with, as a single person, I can't imagine how can someone "complain" of only making 50k or beyond, because that's like spitting in the face of the majority of the population that lives with the minimum wage.
    - snemvalts 6y ago
      if 70k a year is very very low to you, you should really start travelling after covid ends. the poorest billion people on this planet live on 1 USD a day each.
      - flyinglizard 6y ago
        It is “very, very low” as the level where happiness tapers off. I know I can, and will, do a hell of a lot more with 140k per year than with 70k per year.
  - qwerty456127 6y ago
    AFAIK there are many cities where 70K per year is well below comfortable (even if your definition of comfort doesn't imply luxury yachts or cocaine). Yesterday I have been told $80K is the actual median income but $200K is minimum comfortable in SF (never been to there, can't confirm).
    - NL807 6y ago
      Once you're a millionaire, I'm assuming you have purchased and paid off a home. With that in mind, if $70K/year is still well below comfortable, then I would argue their spending habits are questionable.
      - tomcam 6y ago
        Maybe? I live in Seattle. My paid-off home costs $13,000/year in property taxes alone.
      - mastazi 6y ago
        Where I live (Sydney Australia) after purchasing an average home [1] you would have less than a million left out of those two millions, so according to grandparent's calculation [2] you would have less than 35k/year left, to sustain yourself. That's above the poverty line which is around 24k/year [3], but well below the median salary which is around 50k/year [4]. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sydney-s-median-house-price-back-over-1-million-as-interest-rate-cut-looms-20200302-p545w3.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sydney-s-median-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580987 [3] https://apo.org.au/node/276246 https://apo.org.au/node/276246 [4] https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/providers/housing/affordable/manage/chapters/household-median-incomes-2020-21 https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/providers/housing/affordable/man...
        mgkimsal 6y ago
        that 'median salary' is likely having to support housing/rent which the hypothetical person in this scenario wouldn't have to account for. might not be 35k after housing, but might be (or housing/taxes).
  - adrianN 6y ago
    A million or two allows you to live without working for your money. Five or ten million allow you to have people do anything you don't like doing yourself for you. But beyond that I don't really know what to do with money.
    - kolinko 6y ago
      You can invest and influence the world above 10 mil.
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      Wow, y'all don't have much imagination. I mean, if money were no object, I could easily want a nice little place by the beach. I'm not talking some giant mansion with loads of servants, just a nice place, let's say 2000 sq ft. Ah, here's a 3 bed/3 bath condo of 1887 sq feet on the beach ... for $4.9 million: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Malibu/26170-Pacific-Coast-Hwy-90265/home/6855272 https://www.redfin.com/CA/Malibu/26170-Pacific-Coast-Hwy-902.... Obviously there are much cheaper places to live than Malibu, but again, if I had the money I wouldn't mind living there.
  - buggythebug 6y ago
    All depends on the life you want. You can go live on an island in Greece, or Eastern Europe, or Columbia - and 70K in those places will GO FAR: Housing: Check Nightlife: Check Can't speak for the men, but good looking women: Check Cost of food: Check. All depends where you want to live and lifestyle you want.
    - patrickaljord 6y ago
      > You can go live on an island in Greece, or Eastern Europe, or Columbia I think you meant Colombia :)
      - buggythebug 6y ago
        Nope, Columbia :)
  - jacobr1 6y ago
    What the 70k figure tells us, is that such an income (adjusting for local conditions) is roughly the inflection point of diminishing returns for basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy. It isn't so much that people are overall satisfied at 70k, but that people with more are _no less_ satisfied. It is a plateau. Many will still want more and may be unhappy. At that point happiness must be sought by other means (love, community, esteem, self-actualization), which might indeed involve the application of money, but it requires doing something worthwhile (from the perspective of that individual). Something money enables, such as a bigger house isn't enough (by itself). It isn't that money above 70k doesn't improve wellbeing, but that isn't sufficient by itself to do so.
- faichai 6y ago
  For sure, and maybe he didn't give a toss in his later years, but for someone who spent a lifetime developing a reputation for style having his name become synonymous with crap, my guess is he had some regrets.
  - extrememacaroni 6y ago
    Ah yes, the regret of being seen unfavorably by Hackernews, I'm sure he was devastated.
    - faichai 6y ago
      We’re not the only ones to notice. Others have [1]. [1] https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/10489/pierre-cardins-bizarre-back-catalogue-of-licensing https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/10489/pierre-cardi...
    - dang 6y ago
      "Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
usrusr 6y ago
I remember buying several clothing items with that name assuming that it was a mockup label used by the store chain for essentially noname/whitelabel products. Never expected that the name could be traced to a licence from an actual person.

jpcooper 6y ago

Pierre Cardin’s net worth was apparently 800 million USD according to a quick internet search. That is quite a few bucks. Maybe Pierre Cardin has a couple of lessons to teach us.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Once you get above 2 million it doesn't matter (2 million is enough to shed 70K per year which is widely thought to be the threshold where more money doesn't improve wellbeing). If money is the motivator after that then you are in a race you can't win.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- flyinglizard 6y ago
  That 70k figure sounds arbitrary and very, very low. It is not even a living wage in many western cities.
  - laputan_machine 6y ago
    What cities are you living in?! £70k GBP is an insane salary, $70k USD equates to £52k, which is also _well_ above the UK average salary. Same applies to EU cities too. Also, if you are curious, I believe this is the study people frequently cite: https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_high_income_improves_evaluation_August2010.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/deaton_kahneman_...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      IIRC from my cost of living calculations early this year, 52k GBP is barely enough for a couple with a small child to survive in London.
      - cassepipe 6y ago
        Yes but that's three persons. Unless it was assumed that the typical profile here is a pater familias with a housewife.
        TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Perhaps not typical, but quite nice if you can pull it off. I actually refused an offer to move to London (despite initial excitement) for a salary slightly larger than mentioned above, because it would've been a significant quality of life downgrade. Even if both partners work, being able to stay above water on a single salary does wonders for the peace of mind.
        flyinglizard 6y ago
        In the context of planning retirement with perpetual income coming from a lump sum, you have to take family into account (because that’s what most people end up with).
      - laputan_machine 6y ago
        Yeah, I can believe that, but that is 1 city, what number constitutes 'many'?
    - mytailorisrich 6y ago
      The claim was that 70k is when additional money does not improve wellbeing, not whether this is more than most people earn. Obviously the number has to be quite higher than the average income. I live in the UK and I can assure you than earning £52k or £70k a year is not an insane salary and is certainly way below the income at which money no longer makes a difference. Or this is £50k-70k after tax and per person in the household. In which case this means earning well in excess of £200k a year for both parents for a family of four, which is probably more realistic but also probably means this only applies to the 1%...
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    https://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/09/study-says-$75,000-can-buy-happiness.html https://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/09/study-says-$75,000... >and very, very low. The median wage in the US is $36,000, less than half of that.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - cassepipe 6y ago
    What you say is crazy. I live in Paris with 12k a year, no holidays and not comfortable but it _is_ a living wage, the minimum wage actually. I can imagine needing the triple of that if I took holidays and treated myself to nice restaurants and bought fancy clothes. But that's still well below 70k. So if you are the kind of person that consider 70k very low, you are also the kind of person I would remorselessly take the money from.
    - flyinglizard 6y ago
      Paris is a big metro. I’m sure you don’t live in the expensive parts. And what about a family? Retirement? Vacations? Owning your own place? A quick search shows the median salary in Paris is about 50k euros, which is roughly 60k USD. But being on median income is usually not that great anyway.
      - jrimbault 6y ago
        Not cassepipe, but also currently living on (less than) minimum wage, in an expensive part of Paris, France. I'm cooking, coding, reading, watching youtube. This year has been "great" for me. Of course I would have liked more comfort, some foods I can't affort but, but I've got a good bed, a good chair, an excellent desk, good cooking knives, an ereader with a practically infinite supply of free books, computers and hard drives (hidden) everywhere in my 20m². I write the kind of code I like to write, I'm not accountable to anyone. (not anonymous you can try to name search me to cross check) I estimate I'd need about 30k€/y to be able to not skip on anything I'd want to do. (usual disclaimers apply: young-ish single man living alone, never had health issues, with no desire to live in any other way, etc)
      - cassepipe 6y ago
        Actually you are right as Paris itself is quite small and quite expensive. But Paris is a five minutes walk away so I guess it's fair to say I live in Paris. My point was not arguing on how great I live but that beyond the triple of what I live with, as a single person, I can't imagine how can someone "complain" of only making 50k or beyond, because that's like spitting in the face of the majority of the population that lives with the minimum wage.
  - snemvalts 6y ago
    if 70k a year is very very low to you, you should really start travelling after covid ends. the poorest billion people on this planet live on 1 USD a day each.
    - flyinglizard 6y ago
      It is “very, very low” as the level where happiness tapers off. I know I can, and will, do a hell of a lot more with 140k per year than with 70k per year.
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  AFAIK there are many cities where 70K per year is well below comfortable (even if your definition of comfort doesn't imply luxury yachts or cocaine). Yesterday I have been told $80K is the actual median income but $200K is minimum comfortable in SF (never been to there, can't confirm).
  - NL807 6y ago
    Once you're a millionaire, I'm assuming you have purchased and paid off a home. With that in mind, if $70K/year is still well below comfortable, then I would argue their spending habits are questionable.
    - tomcam 6y ago
      Maybe? I live in Seattle. My paid-off home costs $13,000/year in property taxes alone.
    - mastazi 6y ago
      Where I live (Sydney Australia) after purchasing an average home [1] you would have less than a million left out of those two millions, so according to grandparent's calculation [2] you would have less than 35k/year left, to sustain yourself. That's above the poverty line which is around 24k/year [3], but well below the median salary which is around 50k/year [4]. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sydney-s-median-house-price-back-over-1-million-as-interest-rate-cut-looms-20200302-p545w3.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/sydney-s-median-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25580987 [3] https://apo.org.au/node/276246 https://apo.org.au/node/276246 [4] https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/providers/housing/affordable/manage/chapters/household-median-incomes-2020-21 https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/providers/housing/affordable/man...
      - mgkimsal 6y ago
        that 'median salary' is likely having to support housing/rent which the hypothetical person in this scenario wouldn't have to account for. might not be 35k after housing, but might be (or housing/taxes).
- adrianN 6y ago
  A million or two allows you to live without working for your money. Five or ten million allow you to have people do anything you don't like doing yourself for you. But beyond that I don't really know what to do with money.
  - kolinko 6y ago
    You can invest and influence the world above 10 mil.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    Wow, y'all don't have much imagination. I mean, if money were no object, I could easily want a nice little place by the beach. I'm not talking some giant mansion with loads of servants, just a nice place, let's say 2000 sq ft. Ah, here's a 3 bed/3 bath condo of 1887 sq feet on the beach ... for $4.9 million: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Malibu/26170-Pacific-Coast-Hwy-90265/home/6855272 https://www.redfin.com/CA/Malibu/26170-Pacific-Coast-Hwy-902.... Obviously there are much cheaper places to live than Malibu, but again, if I had the money I wouldn't mind living there.
- buggythebug 6y ago
  All depends on the life you want. You can go live on an island in Greece, or Eastern Europe, or Columbia - and 70K in those places will GO FAR: Housing: Check Nightlife: Check Can't speak for the men, but good looking women: Check Cost of food: Check. All depends where you want to live and lifestyle you want.
  - patrickaljord 6y ago
    > You can go live on an island in Greece, or Eastern Europe, or Columbia I think you meant Colombia :)
    - buggythebug 6y ago
      Nope, Columbia :)
- jacobr1 6y ago
  What the 70k figure tells us, is that such an income (adjusting for local conditions) is roughly the inflection point of diminishing returns for basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy. It isn't so much that people are overall satisfied at 70k, but that people with more are _no less_ satisfied. It is a plateau. Many will still want more and may be unhappy. At that point happiness must be sought by other means (love, community, esteem, self-actualization), which might indeed involve the application of money, but it requires doing something worthwhile (from the perspective of that individual). Something money enables, such as a bigger house isn't enough (by itself). It isn't that money above 70k doesn't improve wellbeing, but that isn't sufficient by itself to do so.
faichai 6y ago
For sure, and maybe he didn't give a toss in his later years, but for someone who spent a lifetime developing a reputation for style having his name become synonymous with crap, my guess is he had some regrets.
- extrememacaroni 6y ago
  Ah yes, the regret of being seen unfavorably by Hackernews, I'm sure he was devastated.
  - faichai 6y ago
    We’re not the only ones to notice. Others have [1]. [1] https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/10489/pierre-cardins-bizarre-back-catalogue-of-licensing https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/10489/pierre-cardi...
  - dang 6y ago
    "Don't be snarky." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

usrusr 6y ago

I remember buying several clothing items with that name assuming that it was a mockup label used by the store chain for essentially noname/whitelabel products. Never expected that the name could be traced to a licence from an actual person.