Farewell to Pierre Cardin, the Italian designer born 98 years ago in Treviso, and grown up in France, where he took his first steps in fashion to become one of the most important couturiers of the twentieth century, best representing that mix of style between Italy and France. At the age of 14, he began his apprenticeship as a tailor in Saint-Étienne. In 1945 he arrived in Paris working first for Jeanne Paquin and then for Elsa Schiaparelli. First tailor of the Christian Dior maison during its opening in 1947 he participates in the success of the master who invents the New Look. In 1950 he founded his own fashion house, experimenting with high fashion in ’53. Cardin became famous for his futurist style, inspired by the first exploits of man in space. It is a forerunner in the choice of new markets and in signing new licenses. In 1959 he was the first designer to open a high fashion store in Japan. Cardin loves high society and the jet set, and in 1981 he acquires the famous Parisian restaurants Maxim’s. In a short time he opens branches in New York, London and Beijing in 1983 and joined a chain of hotels. He acquired the ruins of a castle in Lacoste inhabited in the past by the Marquis de Sade and started to organize theatrical festivals there. A docu-film about his life was presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, a focus on man’s confidentiality and his ability as artist and businessman to create a billion dollar empire, innovating in style, linking its name to hundreds of products and with an unparalleled ability to export haute couture abroad. “It all started with 200,000 red coats sold in the US”, Cardin reveals in the biopic, showing the garments with which he has established himself on the Soviet and Chinese markets since the 1970s. “Cardin is a total emperor”, says in the film Jean-Paul Gautier, interviewed, among others, together with Sharon Stone, Naomi Campbell and Philippe Starck. In July 2019 a monographic exhibition dedicated to the “fashion giant” in the USA was dedicated to Cardin, in the Brooklyn Museum.
