A chance meeting in Brussels where he had started working as a copy and speech writer, having completed a student traineeship in the European Commission, changed the direction of Patrick Scallon’s life and career.
Scallon, from Irvinestown in Co Fermanagh, a graduate of politics, philosophy and economics in UCD, had a meeting with the business partner of a then up-and-coming young Belgian fashion designer called Martin Margiela, of Maison Margiela fame. This led to a temporary job that turned into a 17-year working relationship.
Working as the famously elusive designer’s assistant communications director, Scallon became the effective mouthpiece of the company.
“I was the only person outside the company who people met, and it allowed me to grow creatively,” he recalls of those years.
READ MORE
He now divides his time between Northern Ireland and Paris working as a freelance consultant, having set up a boutique company called Potent Ideas (potent-ideas.com) on communications and cultural strategy for fashion companies, his experience is sought after by private and public companies working in the arts, culture and lifestyle sectors, particularly in Asian markets. He spoke recently, for instance, in China on the evolving cultural relevance of fashion at a global luxury conference in Shanghai.
“Informed customers across the globe are now seeking a more profound relationship with the brands they engage with,” he says, citing a growing widespread trend for authenticity and provenance. “Cultural and artistic resonance are at the forefront of this evolving approach. People want to experience more than just the validation of the logo.”
In 2008, when Margiela’s company was taken over and the designer left to pursue other interests, Scallon joined Dries Van Noten in Antwerp as communications director. This involved every aspect of the company’s communications as well as organising twice-yearly fashion shows, exhibitions, events and creative associations.
A particular highlight was his masterminding of a multidisciplinary exhibition celebrating the designer’s work in 2014 in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, which, with more than 400 items on show, attracted record attendances. The exhaustive organisation of the exhibition took four years and involved negotiating with galleries, artists and photographers for loans and permissions. This contributed to his being awarded a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French ministry of culture and Jacques Lang in 2019 for his contribution to fashion.
Being an independent consultant who can now select projects of his choice after years working with specific brands allows him more time for Ireland and Paris where he has lived for the past 30 years and where he has experienced significant changes in the fashion industry.
“Paris has always been a melting pot creatively in the fashion world, but now the industry is much more global and less dependent on the habitual five fashion capitals [of New York, London, Paris, Milan and Tokyo]. Over the past years, Paris has seen a greater influx of younger and more avant-garde talent that might formerly only have considered London or New York, so it has become more vital and modern,” he says.
He also thinks visitors who come to Paris for a few days a few times a year are as much Parisian as those who live here.
“When you live here it feels like it is no more your city; it is like a mistress, but never your partner. Its image and personality remain quite elusive and unattainable, yet a cliche nonetheless.”
Paris now attracts social media tourists – particularly Instagram – a global phenomenon generally. “As visitor numbers fuelled by social media surge, residents are reminded that tourism has always been its primary source of income and purpose. It seems that the ‘Disneyfication’ of the city is now irreversible,” he says.
Lack of space remains the challenge it always was. “It’s quite a hermetic city, not as sociable as people might like to think it is and it is not a terribly green city. There are certainly big parks, but not a huge number, but then you have the cultural mother lode of museums and exhibitions and bistro culture still exists, so it is still a living culture.”
He says France exports final products only, after three or four stages of development to a level of excellence. France does not export milk, but cheese; it does not export grapes, but wine.
“So, the final product means that they benefit by people associating France with excellence in craftsmanship and products in general.” He thinks there are implications for Ireland in increasing the value of brand ‘Ireland’ in a similar way.
As a long-term resident of the French capital, which is becoming a much more cosmopolitan city, he says “living in Paris, you always feel it is an honour to be living here, but people who do live here often forget what is available to them”.
“Now that I am a master of my own time, I can sit on the terrace with a coffee, whereas in the past moving through the city from meeting to meeting, I would glimpse someone doing that. Now I can afford that moment too.”
