The bold designer who remade the fashion trade
Pierre Cardin 1922–2020
Pierre Cardin revolutionized the fashion industry. The French designer rose to fame in the 1960s with bold, innovative designs, including the collarless Nehru jacket, an A-line minidress to be paired with towering boots, and a space race–inspired line that used materials such as vinyl and plexiglass to create astronaut-style jumpsuits and threetiered dresses that hovered around the body like UFOs. But Cardin made an even greater impact on the business side. In the late 1950s he scandalized the elite French fashion world by marketing ready-to-wear clothing that put his designs within reach of middle-class consumers. He sought out new markets in Asia and the Soviet Union. And Cardin was a licensing pioneer, stamping his name on everything from perfumes and bath towels to carpets and kitchen appliances. “His name can be worn, walked on, slept in, sat upon, munched, drunk, flown, pedaled, or driven in 69 countries,” said Time in 1979. “I was born an artiste,” Cardin explained in 1987, “but I am a businessman.” Pietro Cardin was born in a small town outside Venice, said The New York Times, and grew up in east central France, “where his father was a wine merchant.” He “first dreamed of acting,” but shifted his interest to costume design, and at 14 became an apprentice tailor. After working in an administrative position with the French Red Cross during World War II, Cardin moved to Paris, “intent on establishing himself as a designer.” He apprenticed at top fashion houses before opening his own boutique in 1950. The debut of his ready-to-wear label nine years later “rocketed Cardin to global fame,” said the Los Angeles Times.
By the end of the 1960s, his imprint “was a magnet for the fashion-minded who found his designs to be hip, provocative, and sometimes wonderfully outrageous.”
As he built his global brand in the 1970s and ’80s, Cardin expanded his focus beyond fashion to “the lifestyle surrounding it,” said The Washington Post. He created an arts complex in Paris, bought the storied restaurant Maxim’s, opened a string of luxury hotels, and acquired some 30 properties around the world. In Paris he was “a man about town,” who “hosted lavish galas” and was “romantically linked to men and women.” In his later years he started an annual music festival, opened a museum devoted to his designs, and in 2017, at age 95, launched a new Parisian boutique. “I don’t stop,” he said. “Just like a painter or a writer, I need to express myself. My reason for being is fashion.”