Visit Pierre Cardin’s holiday home, Bubble Palace

Pierre Cardin even took a vacation in the future, or some vision of the future which, even if it is now in the past, seems to be still out there, waiting for us. “The dresses I prefer,” said the stylist in 1969, “are the ones I invented for a life that doesn’t yet exist.” Cardin, who died at 98 this week, transformed fashion with ready-to-wear and a world of licensing, but always looking ahead. What I would have given to have been one of the guests on October 6, 2008, at the 80th birthday party he gave to himself in celebration of his 50th career in fashion at his home. Palais Bulles (Bubble Palace) in Théoule-sur-Mer, in the south of France, overlooking the Mediterranean. The surreal-domed complex was originally built in the 1970s by Hungarian architect Antti Lovag for a French industrialist, Pierre Bernard, who died in 1991. Cardin was the second owner of this kingdom which included an amphitheater, three pools and ten rooms, each designed by a different artist. But it could very well have emerged from Cardin, the mad scientist himself, as it was a perfect reflection of his Flash Gordon aesthetic that embraced the brave new world of space travel from the 1960s that Cardin captured for the public’s imagination. He developed a licensing empire that included everything from sunglasses, cars, restaurants and home furniture – allowing all of us, in many ways, to participate as well.