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Goodbye to Pierre Cardin, the Italian designer born in Sant’Andrea di Barbarana, a fraction of the municipality of San Biagio di Callalta, in the province of Treviso, in Veneto, but raised in France, where he took his first steps in fashion and grew up to become one of the most important couturiers of the second half of the 20th century, a fashion and design giant passed away today December 29 at the age of 98. In reality, the heart of Pietro Costante Cardin, born on July 2, 1922 into a wealthy farming family, who ended up in poverty after the First World War, had always remained in Italy. Perhaps among all the couturiers of the last century, born in Italy and raised in France, Cardin was the one who best represented that mixture of styles between Italy and France, the determining reason for his success.
At just 14 years old in 1936, young Pierre, whose Italian name, Pietro, had been Frenchified, began his apprenticeship as a tailor in Saint-Étienne. After a brief experience at Manby, a tailor in Vichy, in 1945 he arrived in Paris working first from Jeanne paquin and after Elsa schiaparelli. First tailor of the house Christian dior During its inauguration in 1947 (after being rejected by Cristóbal Balenciaga), he was a participant in the success of the master who invented the New Look. In 1950 he founded his own fashion house, venturing into haute couture in ’53.
Cardin became famous for his futuristic style, inspired by man’s early exploits in space. He preferred geometric cuts, often ignoring feminine shapes. She loved the unisex style and experimenting with new lines. In 1954 introduced the bubble dress, the bubble dress. Cardin was also a pioneer in choosing new markets and signing new licenses. In 1959 he was the first designer to open a haute couture store in Japan. In the same year he was expelled from the French Chambre Syndacale, for having launched for the first time in Paris a collection adapted to the Printemps department store. But it was soon reinstated. However, Cardin has been a member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture et du Pret-à-Porter and the Maison du Haute Couture since 1953 and resigned from the Chambre Syndacale in 1966. His collections since 1971 are exhibited at its headquarters, l ‘Espace Cardin, in Paris, formerly at the Teatro degli Ambasciatori, near the US Embassy, a space that the couturier also used to promote new artistic talents, such as theaters or musicians. Like many other designers, Cardin decided in 1994 to show his collection only to a small group of selected clients and journalists. In 1971 Cardin joined the creation of clothes by his colleague Andrè Oliver, who in 1987 assumed responsibility for the haute couture collections, until his death in 1993. The designer loved worldliness, the world of the jet set, that’s why 1981 acquires the famous Parisian restaurants Maxim’s. In a short time it opened branches in New York, London and Beijing in 1983 and joined a hotel chain. Among the licenses of the Maxim’s line there was also a mineral water that was collected and bottled in Graviserri in the municipality of Pratovecchio Stia, province of Arezzo. The passion for the real estate sector. Cardin had seized the ruins of a Lacoste castle once inhabited by the Marquis de Sade. After renovating the site, the designer organized theater festivals there. Cardin had also rediscovered her Italian roots with the purchase of the Ca ‘Bragadin palace in Venice. where he resided during his frequent stays in the city of the lagoon (in the adjacent street there is an exhibition space). In the 1980s he bought the Palais Bulles (The Palace of Bubbles) designed by the eccentric architect Lovag Antti. Everything from floor to ceiling was filled with spherical shapes. With its 500-seat theater, pools overlooking the Mediterranean Sea used to be the place for parties and events. The interior was furnished with designer pieces, the Utilitarian Sculptures designed by Cardin himself, who since 1977 has given life to a collection of elegant furniture with sinuous shapes. In the Gulf of Cannes, in Théoule-sur-Mer, in the south of France, this architectural work was declared a historical monument by the Ministry of Culture in 1988. Also a docu-film about Cardin’s life presented at the Film Festival Venice in 2019: House of Cardin by P. David Ebersole, Todd Hughes. In July 2019, also a monographic exhibition dedicated to the “fashion giant” in the United States, at the Brooklyn Museum.
