“The Eternal Secretary, Laurent Petitgirard, and the members of the Academy of Fine Arts are very saddened to announce the death of their colleague Pierre Cardin. He was elected chairman of Pierre Dux on February 12, 1992,” the Fine Arts Academy. said.
Pierre Cardin took off in April 2016 in one of his stores in Paris. Credit: Joel Saget / AFP / Getty Images
His creations adorn many stars of the day, including Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Jeanne Moreau, Jackie Kennedy, Charlotte Rampling, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Cardin was one of the first designers to capitalize on the business side of fashion, and became a household name thanks to powerful brands.
He also broke tradition with his futuristic designs – and by producing a unique unisex and ready-to-use collection at a time when both were unheard of.
Cardin was born in 1922 in San Biagio di Callalta, a small town in northeastern Italy, about 20 km from Venice. He was born Pietro, but became known as Pierre after his family moved to France to escape fascism two years later.
Pierre Cardin created a dress for Danielle Lebrun in 1962. Credit: Lipnitzki / Roger Viollet / Getty Images
As a young man, his first steps in fashion coincided with a move to Paris, where he worked on the costumes of Jean Cocteau’s film version of “Beauty and the Beast”. In 1946, he was hired as a tailor by his subsequent mentor, Christian Dior, who had just opened his couture home in Paris.
Four years later, at the age of 28, Cardin founded his own fashion brand of the same name. He first designed theatrical costumes and then in 1953 drew in haute couture.
Fashion innovations
His explosion was the bubble dress – so named for the bubbly shape of the area between the waist and the hemline – that he designed in 1954. It was commercially successful worldwide and paved the way for a series of fashion innovations.
Hoping to make designer clothes more accessible, he launched his first collection of tools at the Printemps department store in Paris in 1959, a move that was so outrageous that it took him out of the Chambre Syndicale, the body of French haute couture (he would be reinstated shortly afterwards before leaving 1966 on his own initiative).
Denise Cox models a Pierre Cardin designed dress and hood. Credit: John Minihan / Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Pierre Cardin stands in his studio surrounded by models. Credit: Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / Getty Images
With an early agenda, Cardin was one of the first foreign designers to open stores in Japan, China and Russia. He pioneered modern brands by giving his name to a variety of products – including perfume, watches, cigarettes and even frying pans – to raise eyebrows in the traditional fashion world and earn serious money investing in real estate.
Among the designer’s property purchases were a Provence castle, once owned by the Marquis de Sade, and the famous Maxim’s restaurant in Paris, which he transformed into a global chain with establishments in New York, Beijing and elsewhere.
In the 1960s, Cardin combined his interest in space exploration – he was photographed in Buzz Aldrin’s space suit two years after the moon landing – with a fascination for technical material by creating the groundbreaking unisex collection of the space age.
Pierre Cardin presented his collection in 1986 in Moscow. Credit: Daniel Simon / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Images
One of his striking clothes, a pink dress made up of shaped 3D shapes and made from a fabric of his own creation, Cardine, was worn in 1968 by actress Lauren Bacall.
Both of Cardin’s homelands offer him recognition: in 1987 Italy calls him a major officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, while France makes him an officer of the Legion of Honor in 1991. In the same year, the designer made a UNESCO goodwill ambassador.