Iconic French designer Pierre Cardin, died Tuesday aged 98, his family told news agency AFP. Pierre Cardin, who was born to a low-income family in northern Italy but became a France-based fashion superstar, died in a hospital in Neuilly in the west of Paris. He grew up in the French industrial town of Saint Etienne and was apprenticed to a tailor in Vichy at the age of 17, already specializing in women’s suits.
Le Secrétaire perpétuel, Laurent Petitgirard, et les membres de l’Académie des beaux-arts ont la très grande tristesse d’annoncer la disparition de leur confrère Pierre Cardin. Il avait été élu le 12 février 1992 au fauteuil de Pierre Dux (section des membres libres). pic.twitter.com/sA1mABvZB5
— Académie beaux-arts (@AcadBeauxarts) December 29, 2020
After a stint with Christian Dior, he had already set up his own fashion label in 1950. Cardin was known for savvy business moves and his space-age designs in his career spanning over 60 years. According to his official website, “Pierre Cardin’s world is made from multiple things, it is protean as well as avant-guardian. Fashion, accessories, jewelry, fragrances, furniture, theater costumes, tableware, and even Maxim’s restaurants…such is the innovating world of Pierre Cardin’s brand. Everything represents an inexhaustible source of inspiration to the designer: Japan and China’s lifestyle during the 60’s and 70’s, all amazing and unusual encounters, everyday life, but also the social, cultural, and industrial evolutions and revolutions. Each of his collections is evidence of a fierce appetite for experimentation.”
Couturier, designer, ambassadeur de la France, académicien, mécène, tout au long de sa vie, Pierre Cardin aura mené bel ouvrage.
Merci monsieur Cardin de m’avoir ouvert les portes de la mode et d’avoir rendu mon rêve possible… #PierreCardin pic.twitter.com/GeworJSsuA— Jean Paul Gaultier (@JPGaultier) December 29, 2020
According to Reuters, “In a career spanning more than 60 years, Cardin drew scorn and admiration from fellow fashion designers for his brash business sense. He maintained that he built his business empire without ever asking a bank for a loan. Cardin was the first designer to sell clothes collections in department stores in the late 1950s, and the first to enter the licensing business for perfumes, accessories and even food – now a major profit driver for many fashion houses.”
“Fashion is always ridiculous, seen from before or after. But in the moment, it’s marvelous,”#pierrecardin
1922-2020 pic.twitter.com/oZKenLygZA— La femme merveilleuse invisible (@larwoolf) December 29, 2020
I’m fascinated by iconic designers who create beautiful and bold clothing while they themselves stick to a very simple and often traditional uniform. #PierreCardin pic.twitter.com/KMDYuFZRve
— George Hahn (@georgehahn) December 29, 2020
