Pierre Cardin was a creative visionary. His decisions changed fashion forever, whether he was making his haute couture collections accessible by introducing ready-to-wear, breaking the design tradition with unisex looks from the space age or creating a global business plan that brands follow today . “What I am now has never existed before,” he said Vogue in 1982. On Tuesday, the fashion industry mourned the news of the death of the French designer at the age of 98.
Cardin has had a long and decorated career spanning more than eight decades. Born in 1922 on the outskirts of Venice, he moved to France with his family to find refuge from the rise of Italian fascism. Cardin started working as a tailor and worked for Christian Dior during the New Look era. He founded his own namesake label in 1950, and the rest is history.
In 1954, his “bubble dresses”, known for their bubble skirts, became a worldwide commercial success and, five years later, he presented his first ready-to-wear collection at the Printemps department store in Paris – a bold move which caused him to be temporarily expelled from the Chambre Syndicale, the organ that governs French haute couture. In the 1960s, he shaped mod aesthetics with space-age fashion – futuristic collections influenced by geometric shapes and worked on fabrics such as plastics and brightly colored vinyls. Cardin set the stage for a modern brand in the following decades, signing his name on everything from accessories and fragrances to household products. Throughout his tenure, numerous celebrities have used his designs, including Jackie Kennedy, Jeanne Moreau, The Beatles and Naomi Campbell.
In 2019, the Brooklyn Museum recognized Cardin’s fashion innovation with a retrospective called Pierre Cardin: fashion of the future, and in 2020, a documentary called Cardin House It was released. Check out some of his best moments below.