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French fashion designer Pierre Cardin, a visionary professional and ready-to-wear pioneer, died Tuesday morning at the age of 98, his family announced to the AFP news agency.
Cardin, the son of Italian immigrants who became a world-renowned businessman, died this morning at the American hospital in Neuilly, west of Paris.
“It is a day of great sadness for our whole family, Pierre Cardin is no longer here. The great stylist who passed through the century, leaving France and the world a unique artistic legacy in fashion, but not only, ”says the family in an advertisement.
Pierre Cardin opened a department store before many others and included men in the shows. In addition, it adopted a large-scale licensing system that ensured the presence of the brand worldwide. The imprint of his name came to be seen on various products, including ties, cigarettes, perfumes or mineral water.
“I’m the oldest designer,” Cardin told AFP in an interview last year, when he was 96, in which he acknowledged that he was preparing his succession and had three designers from his studio to continue producing futuristic clothing.
Pierre Cardin started working as a tailor’s apprentice and, at age 14, already knew how to make his own designs. This rare skill in today’s fashion world has allowed her to translate her ideas into real pieces.
Cardin’s story merges with that of fashion. A graduate of Maison Christian Dior, he left it in 1950 to found his own company and, in 1953, he presented his first collection.
“At Dior, I learned elegance, of course,” he said.
Always a forerunner, he looked to Asia from very early on, where he had a great reputation. He traveled to Japan from 1957, then in full reconstruction after World War II, and organized parades in China since 1979.
His “personal museum” in Saint-Ouen, Paris, covers 3,500 square meters for fashion, 3,500 square meters for furniture and houses almost 10,000 models that he has kept since the beginning of his career.
“Italian by birth, Pierre Cardin never forgot his origins, although he showed unconditional love for France,” the family wrote.
“Supreme consecration, he was finally the first stylist to join the Academy of Fine Arts, making fashion recognized as an art in its own right,” the note adds.
