Pierre Cardin (1922-2020) was a European fashion designer and businessman known for his futuristic designs and his practice of licensing his name to a wide variety of merchandise, thereby reaching a much broader audience than the fashion elite he also designed for.
Born in Italy, Cardin worked for a tailor and served with the French Red Cross during World War II before coming to Paris in 1945 and working with Elsa Schiaparelli and Christian Dior. In 1950, he founded his own fashion house, focused on innovation and the future. His "bubble dress," a loose-fitting dress that uses a tight waistline, loose skirt, and tighter hem to create a "bubble" effect, was released in 1954 and became an immediate success, and other inventive designs followed.
Cardin also wanted to democratize fashion and appeal to a mass market. In 1959 he released a ready-to-wear collection for a French department store, a move that saw him temporarily expelled from the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture Parisienne. During the 1960s he began the now-common practice of licensing his name, releasing clothing and other products that displayed his logo. In addition to licensing furniture, fashion accessories, jewelry, perfumes, household products, and more, he owned a global empire of restaurants and hotels.
Pierre Cardin signing his latest design, an executive jet.
Throughout his career, Cardin cultivated international opportunities and inspirations; he taught fashion briefly in Japan in the 1950s, designed popular airline uniforms for Pakistan International Airlines in the 1960s, and drew inspiration from a Philippines national costume in the early 1970s. He brought his designs to Moscow and Beijing and substantially helped to internationalize fashion.
His overarching themes, however, involve futurism (particularly cosmos-related) and geometric shapes rather than a focus on the body's contours (often resulting in unisex designs). He used fabrics like brightly colored vinyl and plastics and silver foil. Throughout his nearly 70-year career, he insisted on always designing for the future. He was designing clothes, opening boutiques and museums, and managing his licensing empire through the late 2010s before dying in 2020.
To learn more about Cardin, check out the DVD House of Cardin at Haggerty Library.
