Pierre Cardin, the fashion designer who revolutionized France, dies
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The French dressmaker Pierre Cardin, visionary designer, pioneer of 'prêt-à-porter', as well as emperor of futurism, died this morning of December 29 at the age of 98, when he was in the Neuilly hospital, west from the Parisian capital, where he became a renowned businessman.
This was reported to AFP by his family, adding that this day is for them one "of great sadness" because "Cardin is no longer here. The great dressmaker he was, crossed the century, leaving France and the whole world an artistic heritage unique in fashion, but not only within it".
"We are all proud of his tenacious ambition and his audacity, which he displayed throughout his life. A modern man with many talents and tireless energy, he joined the flow of globalization of goods and exchanges very quickly. ", reads the text written by his relatives.
The 'Cardin fashion', groundbreaking and futuristic
The son of Italian immigrants, Pierre Cardin was born in 1922 in Sant'Andrea di Barbarana. From a family of farmers, he and them migrated to neighboring France fleeing fascism in his country. Within this story, Cardin begins to become the protagonist at just 23 years old, in the middle of a scene of a Paris liberated after World War II.
At first his dream was to become an actor or a dancer, but soon the needles and seamstresses of Jeanne Paquin and Elsa Schiaparelli made him opt for that other dream tailored to him. So much so that his cuts and his creations quickly stood out, allowing him to enter the Christian Dior studio, when this house then made the French capital "the capital of fashion" through the New Look, in 1947.
It was during the 1950s when he fully burst into haute couture in such a way that it seemed that he belonged to him. Even being one of the young dressmakers of the moment, the Balenciaga firm rejected him. A decision that led him to create his own haute couture company. "I have been lucky enough to do what I wanted without needing bankers or authority. I have been a free man since I was 20 years old," he used to say about himself when contemplating his luxurious career.
Knowing himself to be a "free man", he earned the label of promoter of 'prêt-à-porter' in an environment that banished him for making fashion not bespoke creations, but rather something common, industrializing standard sizes and going beyond the classic haute couture
"My great trait of genius -recalled the famous designer- was the 'prêt-à-porter' when there was only haute couture, which always makes money lose. They told me that it would not last two years, but I believed in my idea. They criticized and limited me.
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He was criticized but later embraced in design circles for collections like 1965's 'Cosmos', in which he distinguished himself with 'unisex' models and drew inspiration from the space race to Mondrian's color schemes and Mao drawings.
An "unconditional love" for France
Emancipated, with a past of Parisian masters and natural genius, in just 30 years Cardin, who also made famous the designs of futuristic spirals, with particular silhouettes and structures, became one of the most influential "French" on the planet.
A successful formula that he gave himself, not only because of his futuristic vision or because he was the first to parade men in a department store, but also because he knew he was a master of business. After turning his name into a trademark, he multiplied franchise contracts and adopted a large-scale licensing system that ensured that his business group would have a global reach, with millionaire profits and signatures on ties, perfumes, mineral waters and even cigarettes. .
In fact, another of his good moves was to focus – not only for his fashion – on Asia: in 1957 he visited Japan, then in full reconstruction, while in 1979 he set his sights on China to organize catwalks, which created a successful bridge between Paris and the continent. Although, despite everything, he was always "Italian by birth, that he never forgot his origins and had an unconditional love for France," his family stressed.
Precisely in France, back in 1991, Cardin managed to make haute couture part of the Academy of Fine Arts, in a ceremony in which only the dressmaker Paco Rabanne supported him. This is how his relatives remember that moment: "Supreme consecration, he was the first designer to enter the Academy, making fashion recognized as an entire art apart. Today, his academic sword, which he created and on which are engraved the symbols of its success, attests to it".
Still 90 years old, Pierre Cardin was in top mental shape, happy to have made himself that "free man." And at 92, the veteran seamstress reached great joy when he moved his private fashion museum from the outskirts of Paris to the Marais district, in a space of a thousand square meters.
With AFP, EFE and Reuters
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