The perpetual secretary, Laurent Petitgirard, and the members of the Academy of Fine Arts are deeply saddened to announce the death of their colleague Pierre Cardin. He was elected president of Pierre Dux on February 12, 1992, ”the Academy of Fine Arts said.
Pierre Cardin photographed in one of his stores in Paris in April 2016. Credit: Joel Saget / AFP / Getty Images
His creations graced many stars of the day, including Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, Jeanne Moreau, Jackie Kennedy, Charlotte Rampling, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Cardin was one of the first designers to take advantage of the business side of fashion and become a household name thanks to powerful branding.
He also broke from tradition with his futuristic designs – and by producing leading unisex and ready-to-wear collections at a time when both were in fact unheard of.
Cardin was born in 1922 in San Biagio di Callalta, a small town in northeastern Italy about 20 miles from Venice. Born Pietro, he became known as Pierre after his family moved to France two years later to escape fascism.
Pierre Cardin created a dress for Danielle Lebrun in 1962. Credit: Lipnitzki / Roger Viollet / Getty Images
As a young man, his first steps in fashion coincided with a move to Paris, where he worked on the costumes for Jean Cocteau’s film version of “Beauty and the Beast”. In 1946 he was hired as a tailor by his later mentor, Christian Dior, who had just opened his couture house in Paris.
Four years later, at the age of 28, Cardin founded his own eponymous fashion brand, first designing theater costumes and then moving to haute couture in 1953.
Fashion innovations
His breakthrough creation was the bubble dress – so named for the bubble-like shape of the area between the waist and the hem – which he designed in 1954. It proved commercially successful worldwide and paved the way for a series of fashion innovations.
Hoping to make designer clothes more accessible, he launched his first ready-to-wear collection at Printemps department store in Paris in 1959, a move so outrageous that he was banned from the Chambre Syndicale, the body that rules French haute couture (he would soon after before he left on his own initiative in 1966).
Denise Cox models a woolen dress and cape designed by Pierre Cardin. Credit: John Minihan / Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Pierre Cardin is surrounded by models in his studio. Credit: Pierre Vauthey / Sygma / Getty Images
Cardin showed an early business nous and was one of the first foreign designers to open stores in Japan, China and Russia. He pioneered modern branding by giving his name to a variety of products – including perfumes, watches, cigarettes, and even frying pans – that raised eyebrows in the traditional fashion world and made serious money invested in real estate.
Among the designer’s property purchases were a Provencal chateau, once owned by the Marquis de Sade, and the famous Maxim’s restaurant in Paris, which he transformed into a global chain with locations in New York, Beijing and elsewhere.
In the 1960s, Cardin combined his interest in space exploration – photographed two years after the moon landing in Buzz Aldrin’s spacesuit – with a fascination with technical fabrics, creating groundbreaking unisex collections from the space age.
Pierre Cardin presents his collection in 1986 in Moscow. Credit: Daniel Simon / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Images
One of his standout garments, a pink dress made up of molded 3D shapes and made from a fabric of his own creation, Cardine, was famously worn by actress Lauren Bacall in 1968.
Both of Cardin’s homelands offered him recognition: in 1987, Italy appointed him Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, while France made him Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1991. In the same year, UNESCO made the designer an ambassador of goodwill.