9-Feb-2012 - Pierre Rougier, the Man With the Power to Say No

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Mr. Rougier was explaining the most intricate, and potentially most contentious, of preshow rituals: arranging the seating chart. “This is how it works,” he said, as he peeled a yellow sticker with the name of a Teen Vogue editor from her place in the front row to a seat in the back. “You move people around like this.” Prime seats are limited, and only a chosen few will get a good spot. Sometimes a popular new singer will demand a last-minute invitation, bumping a fashion editor or a store buyer from the front row. “Clients will say, ‘Eww, not her,’ ” Mr. Rougier said, although they often acquiesce when he points out that the resulting paparazzi shots will be good publicity. Other times, Mr. Rougier and his clients might ban an out-of-favor journalist, as they did in 2010, when Carine Roitfeld and other editors from French Vogue were barred from the Paris show of Balenciaga, a client of Mr. Rougier at the time, for reasons that cheap nba jerseys were never publicly explained. And then there are the people who demand a prominent seat and throw a tantrum when refused, only to find the icily calm Mr. Rougier unmoved. “If at the end of the day it means that said editor or person will dislike me, that is O.K.,” he said with a shrug. “I’d rather that, than having a bad story on my client. That’s really the bottom line.” Though few people outside fashion know his name, Mr. Rougier, 50, is unquestionably one of that world’s most influential — and controversial — characters. With Sylvie Picquet Damesme, his New York partner in PR Consulting, Mr. Rougier has collected an enviable client list that includes NBA jerseys Jil Sander, L’Wren Scott, Versace and Rag & Bone. Like the Hollywood power Ari Emanuel, the sometimes explosive talent agent widely regarded as the model for Jeremy Piven’s character in “Entourage,” Mr. Rougier wields his influence with skill and determination — and the occasional score settling. It’s not for nothing that, for a time, PR Consulting was labeled “PR Insulting” by some fashion insiders. In 2004, the alternative newsweekly New York Press named Mr. Rougier one of the “50 most loathsome” New Yorkers. (He was sandwiched between Diane Sawyer and the five style guys from the Bravo show, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”) “Do I enjoy being liked or disliked?” Mr. Rougier said with a knowing sigh. “My mother likes me.” PR Consulting’s chief rival is KCD, with its own celebrated client list (Marc Jacobs, Diane Von Furstenberg, Alexander Wang and Givenchy, among others) and its own high-profile co-president, Ed Filipowski. But while the gregarious Mr. Filipowski (the partner of Mark Lee, the chief executive of Barneys New York) is certainly a dogged advocate for his clients, he arguably brings a lighter touch to his dealings with the press than does Mr. Rougier. “Ed is a little more flowery,” said Long Nguyen, a founder of Flaunt magazine. “Pierre is more direct.” Mr. Rougier, an imposing figure at 6-foot-3, grew up near La Rochelle, France; in the late 1970s he studied political science in Bordeaux. He left college before graduating and moved to Paris, where he worked in public relations for Hermès and Yohji Yamamoto, among other fashion houses, before moving to New York in 1993. In 1997 he opened PR Consulting, just as the designer Narciso Rodriguez was starting his own business; Mr. Rodriguez was Mr. Rougier’s first client. Others followed, including the Parisian fashion house Balenciaga; at the time, it was a coup for the young publicist. (Mr. Rougier split with Balenciaga in 2010.) Back then, many considered Mr. Rougier an overzealous advocate who alienated journalists unused to his temper. “I’d say, ‘Pierre, I got a call from someone who said you wouldn’t let them come to a show; they had me on the phone complaining how rude you were to them,’ ” Mr. Rodriguez said. Mr. Rougier’s fledgling clients buy NFL Jerseys were dwarfed by the major fashion houses, like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, that had become mainstream brands in the 1980s. “A lot of the clients I had didn’t have a lot of money, didn’t have a lot of power,” Mr. Rougier said. “All they had was image and talent. And when you are vested with the responsibility of protecting that, I have to say I took my responsibility seriously, and I got very feisty, like, screaming.” Some clients left, Mr. Rougier said, forcing him to look inward. “I had to take a little bit of a step back,” he said.

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