Index – Culture – Pierre Cardin dies

When I finish one thing, I immediately cut the other. I do not like to do anything, I want to continue showing that I am a player

Summed up his philosophy, Pierre Cardin, who was a pioneer in many ways. He reshaped haute couture fashion and made it more accessible, was the first to use his own name as a brand, and his avant-garde and futuristic style still resonates in the creations of many contemporary designers.

Pierre Cardin was born on July 2, 1922 in San Biagio di Callalta, Italy, with the name of Pietro Cardin. He was two years old when his family fled against fascism and moved to France. Cardin’s father was a wealthy wine merchant, but he lost most of his wealth in World War I. The family of eleven children settled in Saint-Étienne, in the south of France. Although his father intended him to be an architect, it soon became apparent that Pierre was much more attracted to another profession. As a child he became very interested in fashion, dressing the babies of neighboring children, and then at age 17 he joined as an assistant to a tailor in Vichy. The spa town was the seat of the French government at the time when Hitler’s troops occupied more than half the country. During the war years, young Pierre studied accounting at night and worked as a secretary at the Red Cross during the day. After the war she moved to Paris, where she first worked at the Paquin fashion house, but from there she quickly moved to Elsa Schiaparelli.

It was then that he met Jean Cocteau, the celebrated filmmaker, who asked him to design a pair of baroque-style costumes and masks for his film Beauty and the Monster (La belle et la bête), and also introduced him to Christian Dior, who in 1946. banin took him as a tailor, for which Cardin actively helped with the birth of the new fashion trend. After World War II, the years of hardship, women again yearned for feminine garments, and the designers of the new style gave them that, then came dresses that were fitted at the waist and had a large skirt part. And yes, the stark contrast to this trend was created by Pierre Cardin with his unisex collections hiding the figure while standing on his own two feet.

Breaking with tradition

Cardin did not deny that he owed much to Dior, but in 1950 he started his own business. The legendary fashion designer was reportedly not offended that his talented employee had become self-sufficient, in fact, he sent a bouquet of roses to the opening of the salon and then directed the guests towards him, with whom he could no longer deal. .

Pierre Cardin’s career really began when, in the fall of 1951, he designed 30 costumes for a large-scale Venetian masquerade ball. Le left oriental, held in the frescoed halls of Palazzo Labia, was the “feast of the century”, the first major social event of the top ten thousand in Europe after the war. She unveiled her first women’s collection in 1953, and in 1954, the unusual shaped “bubble dress” with a puffy skirt made her known internationally. It was then that he opened his first boutique called Eve at 118 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. He consciously sought new inspirations and traveled to Japan in 1957 to learn about Far Eastern fashion. Here he became a visiting professor at Bunka Fashion School for a month, and this year he also opened his men’s store, Adam, where you could buy colorful ties and patterned shirts.

In 1959 she created her first women’s ready-to-wear collection for the Printemps store in Paris. At the time, this was a revolutionary act as the elite fashion world refrained from designing mass-produced items for everyday wear. Cardin paid the price for the move, as it was exhibited from the Chambre Syndicale, an association of French haute couture designers. Haute couture at that time even meant that fashion houses in their own salons handcrafted poisonous and expensive clothing for wealthy customers, and exclusive pieces could not be found in stores. Pierre Cardin was not discouraged by this, in fact, in 1960 he made his first collection of ready-to-wear for men, also revolutionizing the fashion of the other sex, since until then everyone had made shirts and suits to order from the tailor . Because of this, there were no professional male role models yet, so Cardin called the deans of higher education institutions in Paris to send him students. The feminine and masculine lines were also followed over time by a children’s collection, in 1966 the three Parisians were invited to model in the first parade. This year, he opened his own six-story fashion store and studio at 59 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which still operates today.

There is nothing to be ashamed of if one leaves the golden world of salons for street fashion. I opened the door from haute couture to socialism.

Space age

Time has justified it, because when one listens to that Pierre Cardin, one immediately remembers the men’s shirts that bear his name. But its name is not (only) combined with a quality ready-made. The French fashion designer was fascinated by the cosmos: his passion for space and his Japanese tour inspired the very futuristic and very avant-garde style of the Space Age. As the name suggests, Cardin’s interest was in tune with the spirit of the time, as the 1960s was about conquering space and technological optimism. He used modern materials like PVC for his collections and, when it came to the world of design, everything was subordinate to geometry; his own admission was that his favorite shape was the circle because it reminded of the Moon. Of course, he didn’t despise polygons either, just look at one of his most famous creations, Cardine, which he presented in 1968 with actress Lauren Bacall. In addition to Bacall, she designed clothing for international celebrities of the time such as Jacqueline Kennedy, Mia Farrow, Jeanne Moreau, Evita Perón, and Joe DiMaggio. The Cardin Empire grew in the 1970s, with new stores opening in Paris every few years, and by the 1980s, expansion had continued outside of France.

By the way, he was the only one who could wear the spacesuit that Buzz Aldrin wore for the Moon, and in 1971 he designed an outfit for NASA himself. And no matter how special the garments on display at the fair seemed at that time, and in his museum, practicality, usability and comfort were always very important aspects to him. That is why several companies asked him to create uniforms for them, among his clients were Pakistan International Airlines and even Malév in 1984. This was not his only connection with Hungary: under a company agreement, his clothes were distributed At home since 1982, in 1988 he was in uniform for the Olympic team and also organized fashion shows in Budapest every year.

Pierre Cardin, by the way, has always been open to the socialist and eastern countries. He visited China for the first time in 1978, which was the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship, a year later he held fashion shows in Beijing and Shanghai, and in 1996 he was asked to design clothes for civil servants, and in 2007 the parade of fashion in the Gobi desert. An important milestone in his career was also when in 1991 he presented his current collection in front of a crowd of 200,000 people in Moscow’s Red Square.

The brand

There is something else that infuriated Cardard with the profession, he was the first to use his own name as a brand and put it on the clothes he designed. Over time, the Pierre Cardin name appeared on other products as well. And no, not only in perfumes, he also had his own dishes, watches and a suitcase on wheels. It is no surprise the passage of a man who thought that fashion was both a business and an art.

If I can profit from my own name, why not?

I ask. At the time, many objected to this because they thought it was damaging the reputation of the profession, and Cardin devalued himself. Today, however, it is hard to imagine that there was a time when their logos or names did not stand out on luxury clothing and accessories. Over time, he was forgiven by the fashion world, receiving three times (1977, 1979, 1982) the golden thimble, which is awarded to the French designers who devised the most creative collection of that season. And in 1974, she became the first haute couture fashion designer in Time magazine cover.

The Empire

Pierre Cardin’s life was not just about fashion:

• He proved himself as a designer in the automotive industry, and in 1979 Atlantic Aviation asked him to design the exterior and interior of the Westwind 1124.
• He has opened several galleries around the world. In 1970, for example, he bought the Tthéâtre et restaurant des Ambassadeur, which became the Espace Cardin cultural center, where, in addition to fashion, all branches of art and gastronomy were represented. The institution closed in March 2016.
• In 1991, he bought one of the most special houses in the world, the Palais Bulles near Cannes or the Bubble Palace. The impressive villa was designed by Hungarian-born architect Antti Lovag, and in Cardin’s time it almost became a fashion designer museum, where he exhibited his art collection, received stars at the Cannes Film Festival, and held screenings. . Cardin tried to sell the miracle of the surreal 28-room building with three pools and an open-air theater in 2015, but was unsuccessful.
• In 1981, it acquired the Maxim hotel and restaurant chain.
• In 2001, he bought the ruined Marquis Sade mansion in Lacoste, next to which he has since organized a festival of theater and music every summer.

As he grew older, Cardin became more and more of a living classic. Already in 1980, his first exhibition of work was held at the Metropolitan Museum in New York; This was followed by the second major exhibition in 1990, the fortieth anniversary of the fashion house’s founding at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, the third in 2000 at Espace Cardin and the fourth on the sixtieth (!) anniversary in Sao Paolo. He opened his own museum in 2006 in a Paris suburb, which in 2014 moved to a more central location.

He has gone up several times in the last decade to sell his fashion house, but in the end it did not happen.

If you don’t have enough money, don’t buy it. I would still die if I didn’t sell my company. Nobody is forcing it. I don’t care about money, only success

– the designer once came out, who would have asked for one billion euros for the company in 2011 and who had sold the rights to use the luxury brand in China to two Chinese companies two years earlier.

Pierre Cardin was, of course, more than a talented designer and a businessman eager for success. In addition to cultural projects, in 1991 he became a Goodwill Ambassador to UNESCO, and in 2009 he was also elected Goodwill Ambassador by FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Unlike many other fashion designers, Cardin avoided extravagant gestures, always giving the impression of an immaculately elegant, cool and sober businessman, and did not talk about his private life for a long time. It wasn’t until he got older that he became a little more open and started talking about his past, including his relationship with actress Jeanne Moreau. “I was gay. I never had a physical relationship with women. Jeanne was shocked. She was as beautiful as I could dream of. Sensitive. Intelligent. A transcendent appearance,” he recalled decades later in an interview. They met in 1961, their relationship lasted four years and for the rest of Cardin’s life, she regretted not having a child due to the actress’s surgery.

(Cover photo: Pierre Cardin in 2014. Photo: Etienne Laurent / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images)