PARIS — Because the Institut Français de la Mode continues on its trajectory to “the world’s best fashion school,” executive director Sylvie Ebel has been distinguished for fighting the great fight for greater than 30 years.

On Thursday, the education executive received the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest distinction, during a ceremony at the varsity’s campus.

Sidney Toledano, the chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH Fashion Group and president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, bestowed the rank of Chevalier (or knight) upon Ebel.

The style executive, who was elected this yr as chairman of the Paris-based fashion school, repeatedly lauded Ebel’s “engagement, loyalty, solidity and discretion,” adding a private note in regards to the “calm she diffused throughout the varsity and her impressive ability for listening.”

A graduate of France’s distinguished HEC business school, Ebel began her profession in 1981 when she joined the Printemps department store as fashion buyer, private label and lingerie.

Toledano recalled her comment that this position was a “disruptive selection” at a time where business schools didn’t prepare for such skilled tracks, leading her to find a “less rational and more emotional world.”

A probability meeting with one other HEC graduate, Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode executive president Pascal Morand, who was on the time general manager of the IFM, led to her arrival at the varsity in 1992. It was the beginning of a 31-years-and-counting tenure that saw her grow to be secretary general in 1993 and head its entire educational branch.

After the 1999 merger between the IFM and the Centre Textile de Conjoncture et d’Remark Economique, an establishment dedicated to studies on production, consumption and trade within the textile industry, Ebel was named deputy general manager of the resulting school.

She was also instrumental within the later fusion of the IFM and the École de la Chambre Syndicale, said Toledano, highlighting her role in the development of the campus within the Cité de la Mode et du Design, a striking contemporary constructing on the banks of the Seine.

“As an engineer, I like making stores, buildings. I used to be told of this campus project and I asked where the plans were, so I summoned [Ebel],” said Toledano, recalling being impressed by her “rigor and sense of detail” upon seeing the plans.

Serving under three general managers was less an indication of Ebel’s adaptability than of her “personal qualities of intelligence, rigor, benevolence and most of all, her competence and knowledge of the IFM.”

“What this story says is the multitude of emotional connections created by and because of IFM, far beyond skilled acquaintances. I could give multiple examples with [you all] who’ve come [to the ceremony],” said Ebel, an eclectic crowd of fashion executives, industry friends, fellow higher education directors and family.

Calling the varsity “an organization like no other that has an ambience and a specific spirit to which each [person] contributes in their very own way,” she expressed her satisfaction at the varsity’s recognition as a personal higher education establishment of general interest, or or EESPIG, by the French government.

Beyond her personal achievement, Ebel paid particular homage to the ladies of IFM, calling them the “backbone of the home, its pillars who’ve been there because the start or who arrived over time.”

“I’m proud to represent them tonight and that through me, their implication, their resilience and their exceptional loyalty are highlighted,” she continued, noting that she hoped their male colleagues wouldn’t mind this feminist moment.

Ebel was among the many inductees of the Légion d’Honneur’s Recent 12 months decree in 2019, which is published on Recent 12 months’s Day every yr by France’s Journal Officiel, distinguished as the overall manager of the next education institution in fashion with a 40-year profession.

France’s highest distinction, the Légion d’Honneur was established in 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte to acknowledge each civil and military merit. Its order counts some 92,000 members who received the award for “their eminent merits in service of the [French] nation.”

Toledano was named a knight of the Legion of Honor in 2005.  

It has five degrees of accelerating distinction, from Chevalier to Grand-Croix (grand-cross). Only French nationals will be inducted into the order, while foreigners may receive the excellence in the event that they have rendered cultural or economic services to France, or supported causes equivalent to human rights or humanitarian actions.