Born: San Andrea da Barbara, Italy, 1922
In 1974 Vogue’s assessment of Pierre Cardin was as a‘ferbrile, anguished, original, the air quaking about him as he hurtles from place to place, project to project.’ The cover of Forbes magazine 15 years later was emblazoned with the words, ‘Pierre Cardin: Why am I bad if I sell a frying pan?’ For Pierre Cardin, read: paradox. Visionary designer and unashamed licencee.
Cardin’s career began as a tailor’s cutter in Vichy, France. _He opened his own business in 1950, with his first haute couture collection in 1953 and a boutique the following year. Cardin personified the forward-thinking 1960s with his preoccupation with science fiction: jumpsuits and plastic discs; helmets instead of hats. With a marketing strategy years ahead of its time, Cardin extended the tentacles of his empire into new territory, pre-empting the mass-market explosion of the 1960s. In 1956 he was the first European designer to establish himself in Japan, and in 1981 he was the first to open a showroom in China. He has been saying since the 1960s that he would like to have the first boutique on the moon.
With 840 licences in 125 countries, the world-famous Cardin name has appeared on a variety of products – from furniture to private jets, chocolates to nuts. Cardin told Vogue in 1990, ‘After those, of course, they all sneered and said I’d be doing sardine tins next, and I said why not? It’s all part of the creative process.’
