Goodbye Pierre Cardin

Paris

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January 2,2021

On Tuesday, December 29, 2020, at the age of 98, The French couturier Pierre Cardin passed away. The designer has been one of the last emperors of French fashion with nearly 70 years of career, he leaves behind a whole universe whose futuristic DNA is well known all over the world.

The Couturier

Pierre Cardin, born Pietro Costante Cardin on July 2, 1922, in Sant'Andrea di Barbarana, is a French fashion designer and businessman of Italian descent. He was noticeably young when his parents, peasants ruined by war, moved to France in the mid-1920s. As a child, he was fascinated by the world of fashion. He soon started as an apprentice at a tailor in Saint-Etienne, then in Vichy. After the Second World War, he decided to try his luck in Paris.

In 1945, he participated in the production of the costumes for the film Beauty and the Beast by Jean Cocteau. The director will then use his services several times, notably for the film Orpheus. He worked with Elsa Schiaparelli for two months, then he became the first tailor of Dior, where he went to practice for three years. We will not forget that he will support in the design of the famous Bar Jacket. In 1950, he opened his own fashion house after buying Pascaud, a specialist in stage costumes. He retained this activity which allowed him to create the costumes for the film The Princess of Cleves (1961) by Jean Delannoy and the costumes of the character John Steed from the series Melon Hat and Leather Boots (1967).

In 1953, Pierre Cardin presented his first collection, including tailors and the bubble dress, his favorite piece. Cardin made a trip to Japan that would later inspire him many models, including the Mao costume. In 1959, he organized the first ready-to-wear show in a department store, in Spring. Gradually, the couturier imposes his futuristic style in his creations that go through the decades.

Pierre Cardin is also the first to parade the man. It was 1958, at a time when the profession of modeling for men did not exist. In two or three phone calls to university rectors, Pierre Cardin was able to find in an army of students with advantageous physique a cabin of models ready to perform in the salons of the Crillon.

In 1992, he was the first couturier elected to the French Academy of Fine Arts.

The businessman

A shrewd businessman, he develops the Cardin brand and offers many products derived from lighting to linens to perfumes. He has distinguished himself as a designer with a furniture collection launched in 1970. In 1981, he acquired the Parisian restaurant Maxim's and in the 2000s founded a museum dedicated to Art Nouveau on the 2nd floor of the restaurant.

The Cardin man relies heavily on his real estate acquisitions. Today, it is believed to list some fifty houses belonging to him, from the Maxim's restaurant to the Château de Lacoste, former residence of the Marquis de Sade, located in the heights of the Vaucluse and bought in 2001.

Passionate about art, he transformed the Ambassadors' theatre in Paris to create the Pierre Cardin Space in 1971. He also restored the castle of the Marquis de Sade in Lacoste in the Vaucluse to create a festival of opera and theatre.

He was at the head of an empire valued at more than 600 million euros in 2019 (according to Challenges magazine).

On the private side, Pierre Cardin shared the life of actress Jeanne Moreau for several years. He was also the companion of fashion designer André Oliver.

Here! We say goodbye to a couturier who has left his indelible mark on the history of fashion with a style that is widely noticeable.