European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 13, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse French fashions for Moscow new York times to top French designers and a handful of european clothing manufacturers arc conspiring Wilh the Kremlin to smarten up Russia s durably dressed citizenry and to get a crack at a huge untapped Market Tor fashionable clothes last april Puorro Cardon who showed off his creations Dunny a safes Pilch in peking a year ago signed a con race to provide the soviet Union annually with 92 clothing designs Tho designs for russians Range from women s suits to men s ties Over Iho next five years. Tho garments wit to manufactured from russian material in 32 russian factories and sold under the Cardin Label in Cardin boutiques in Moscow Tho con race 15 says Pierre Crey a Cardin aide. The first shop in the restaurant of the former olympic Village will open is doors Early next year at 215,000 Square get it is the largest Cardin boutique anywhere and certainly the largest a Syvon boutique in Moscow. Cardin s made in Russia of Oles wiil also be sold in two smaller boutiques in the smart arbat pedestrian shopping Street in Moscow s old town Yves Saint Laurent is hard on Cardin s heels in december he will go to Moscow and Leningrad Wilh designs he took to new York last year and which arc currently on show in peking. Well be Larking about licensing agreements with the ministry of Light Industry says Christoph Girard a company spokesman. But Selling the russians on Ole gang French designs is Only half the Battle to an Economy notorious Tor the wretched Quality of its consumer goods. The Olhorn half is getting production standards up to Grade. And this is where the clothing manufacturers enter the picture. Last year Vestra Union. France s third largest men s clothing maker and a manufacturer of Cardin suits signed a 14 million con race to upgrade two soviet clothing factories. Several other european clothiers including Bidermann France s biggest clothing manufacturer. Loussac Saint Freres and some italian. Dutch and German companies Are said to be negotiating similar contracts with soviet authorities to modernize 22 russian clothing factories. All the negotiations Are about at the same Plum certain escorting to dolls u 1985 Cathlon Thow if breaking into it re Talon nor Tel w photo says Bidermann director Georges Jolles. We re just finishing technical discussions Wilh their engineers and the financial negotiations will Start in although Cardin s Crey says negotiations began Well before Mikhail s. Gorbachev s ascension to the top Kremlin Slot Gorbachev s declared commitment to increasing consumer production combined with his wife Raisa s elegant wardrobe May have Well seeded matters. Mrs Gorbachev has visited the Cardin fashion House in pans and she invited the designer to Dine with her when he visited Moscow last year. The russians have been telling us they wanted to do something about their clothing Industry for some time but everything seeded after Gorbachev got to the said Jolles How the russians will finance this upgrading of Ihler clothing Industry remains unclear. The factory modernization contracts Are said to be Worth $8 million each and the european companies expect to be paid in Cash and in Western currency Cardin. Who already markets russian Vodka and caviar under the Maxim s restaurant Label which he owns Wilt also receive a percentage of sales. First estimations suggest the clothes will carry pretty High Price tags with dresses costing 60 to 100 rubles or More. But Crey says that prices will be fixed in relation to production costs and we Don t know whal those Are swahili National geographic herbs Jinns and evil Eye on his wedding night a Young swahili Man in Mombasa k a eals roast Chicken stuffed i Nard boiled eggs an washes in Down we i milk and reason is that All of these Are very very hot and increase virility say Marc j. Swartz an anthropology professor at the University of California san Diego who has been studying swahili culture Lor the past 12 years. Swartz explains that even the Besl educated swahili in the cosmopolitan City the largest seaport in Easl Africa believe to some extent in an ancient medical theory based on maintaining the balance of four contrasting elements in the body hot cold wet and dry. Heat is linked to maleness and youth coldness to femininity and age. A Newborn baby is hot and wet. A Corpse is cold and dry. Without exception diseases Are caused by diet imbalances. Every Rood is hot or cold wet or dry. Honey is hot for example and Large wish which Are cold cause lung diseases if eaten to excess. Swahili doctors treat diseases with dietary changes and herbal and Mineral medicines they Don t perform surgery leaving that to Western style physicians in Mombasa s modern hospitals. The balance theory As Swartz Calls dates Back to the teachings of the ancient greek physician Gaten ii is the basis of Medicine throughout much of the Muslim and arabic worlds the swahili of Mombasa who probably number 2,000 to 3,000 by Swartz s estimate Are an extremely reticent tightly knit Community of pious sunni muslims who have practice Galenic Medicine since settling in the City s old town a millennium ago they Are achievers relatively prosperous aristocratic people who place a Premium on education and Are heavily represented in professional and White Collar jobs. Among his educated swahili friends Swartz makes no secret of his disbelief in this kind of Medicine. He tells the hypothetical Story of a sheikh an elderly and respected Man who suffers a stroke which the swahili Call the great come on. You Guys Swartz says to his friends that s not the great coldness it s a blood col in his brain and it you re entirely right the swahili respond. But Why does that happen it happens because the balance of his body is upset. Only god can cure diseases and this is one that god does t often allow lobe herbal Medicine has various Levels of practitioners starting with the Well read professionals almost always men who have studied under a master for Many years. Lower in the Hierarchy and distinctive to the swahili Are the women Bone setters and manipulators these women work without casts and splints. I have seen some really astonishing successes from this traditional treatment of broken Bone " says Swartz. Whose research has been supported by the National geographic society. The swahili worry about a disease that results when body parts gel out of sine. The most commonly Mal aligned part is the sternum or breastbone called the Arrow of the heart by the women manipulators. The cure Light a piece of cloth in a Jar creating a saturday september 13. 19b8 the stars and stripes vacuum. Place the Jar on the Chest realigning the Arrow Ever so slightly. Swartz recalls a similar treatment Lor draining boils that was used when he was a boy in Nebraska in the 1930s. Such practices inspire considerable scepticism among the More sophisticated swahili. But a whole different group of practitioners the spirit doctors Deal with the Jinns or genies that sometimes give people health problems. Spirit doctors do Battle Wilh the bothersome Jinns by attacking them with familiars or spirits Over which they themselves have control. Swartz knows a spirit doctor who has four familiars which he dispatches after going info a trance. Belief in supernatural sources of illness a a Muslim article of Faith unlike the balance system which the swahili believe to be in the realm of science. Swartz does l express scepticism to the swahili about hair religious beliefs. Jealousy and the evil Eye Are two other powerful Lite and death swahili beliefs. You must never Praise anyone because you will stimulate jealousy of them Swartz says. Ii somebody says did you meet my daughter and you say i did and she s a delightful girl that s a horrible thing to do it s like killing it creates jealousy and jealousy creates disease he explains. The evil Eye something that some people Are inexplicably born Wilh is a sort of refinement and focusing of jealousy Swartz says. One glance at a Beautiful baby by someone with the evil Eye harms in incalculably maybe kills in he Saya. They Don t Pul babies out where Peop a can see them and that s one of the reasons the swahili Are so reticent to Tell you a Page 17o
