MANDEL: Nygard tells court no one could be locked inside his bedroom suite

There’s nothing Peter “Polyester King” Nygard likes more, it seems, than speaking about himself and the fashion empire he once commanded.

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The 82-year-old confidently took the stand at his sex assault trial, his long grey hair tied back in a messy bun, his facial skin pulled so unnaturally tight to seemingly mimic the posters of his younger self that used to plaster all of his retail stores. But as he recalled his past triumphs, his voice often stuttered and quavered and he couldn’t remember his oldest daughter’s birthday.

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“Short-term memory loss has gotten worse and worse and worse. It’s almost embarrassing, your mind goes blank. Also eyes, also ears,” he said while laughing. “I recommend not to get old — it’s not a good disease.”

Is it difficult for the jury to square this diminished, if still boastful, man with the allegations they’ve heard over the last month — that the powerful and famous executive lured five beautiful women, including a teenager, to the private bedroom suite in his Toronto headquarters, where he wrestled them to the bed and sexually assaulted them?

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Nygard has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one of forcible confinement in Toronto incidents spanning the 1980s to 2005.

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Defence lawyer Brian Greenspan spent the morning gently guiding the former fashion mogul, in excruciating detail, through his oft-told rags-to-riches story: His humble beginnings as a Finnish immigrant to Manitoba, his creation of the clothing company Nygard International, his personally designed office-residences in Toronto, Winnipeg, Marina del Rey, Calif., and Nygard Cay estate in the Bahamas and his private plane and yacht.

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“I’m sorry for rambling on so much,” Nygard apologized at one point. “I get so excited talking about this kind of thing because it was so much a part of me.”

The self-described workaholic said it sadly cost him his brief one and only marriage. But that didn’t stop him from pursuing relationships. “Of course,” he told Greenspan. “I’m a human being.”

And a remarkably energetic one, he’d have us know. He slept only four hours a night, ate well — especially blueberries — eschewed smoking, sugar, drugs and hard alcohol. “I did not ruin myself like a lot of people,” Nygard declared proudly.

With his tanned face, flowing hair and unbuttoned shirt, he became the poster boy for his brand.

“I was in love with this business. I was married to this business, so I was out there in the public constantly,” he explained. “I became a celebrity in my business and at the end of the day, we became the No. 1.”

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Greenspan showed him photos of his Mayan-style Bahamas estate, where one of the complainants said she came across an orgy going on in a grotto.

“Mr. Nygard, in your design and construction of Nygard Cay, was there any part of the property that you designed or intended to be used to engage in secret sexual conduct?”

“No,” he said with a laugh. “That’s insane. Absolutely insane. I designed every detail of that place; there was no such thing as a grotto.”

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Nygard also designed his Toronto headquarters often mentioned during the trial, where complainants said he gave them a tour that ended in his “Finland Suite” — his hidden bedroom dominated by a king-size bed where they said they were sexually assaulted.

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Many of the women described how the door to the bedroom was concealed within a glass or mirror wall of Nygard’s office and they couldn’t get out.

Nygard acknowledged there were two mirrored doors into his suite — one from his private office and the other from the reception area — and they could only be opened by a passcode, which he said, while chuckling, was “1-2-3-4.”

“To get into it from my office, we had to push a code and to get back into my office there was a code. It was a very secure place.”

But he insisted that even without the passcode, you could exit through one of the bedroom doors by pushing a button beside his bed or leave by way of the bathroom, which also had a door to the public hallway.

“Under no circumstances could you ever get locked in there,” Nygard said.

His testimony continues Thursday.

mmandel@postmedia.com

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