Design History:Pierre Cardin - Design Genius & Empire Builder

Known for his bold designs, Pierre Cardin revolutionized the world of design. The first designer to embrace ready-to-wear clothes, he created an empire that spans the globe and seeped into every design field imaginable.

Pierre Cardin was born in Venice, Italy in 1922 to French parents, both wine merchants. When he was four, his family moved back to France and he grew up in the Loire Valley region. He moved to Paris to study architecture, but soon shifted his interest to fashion design. He obtained work as an assistant in the house of Paquin where he helped to design the costumes for Jean Cocteau’s (1946) film, Beauty and the Beast. He also worked for Elsa Schiaparelli and later joined Christian Dior as the head of his design studio.

Cardin left Dior in 1950 to open his own Haute Couture house and followed soon after with his first boutique on the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore. Pierre Cardin’s ready-to-wear line, the first of its kind, launched in 1959, scandalized the fashion powers in France who expelled him for attempting to make designer clothing more accessible. They later reinstated him, but he never showed his collections with them again.

Pierre Cardin is known for his “space suits” of the 60s, his metal body jewelry, and as the inventor of the “bubble dress.” His early designs were dramatic, bold, and often irregular in cut. His unisex fashions were often more experimental than practical. Honestly, I don't care much for his fashion sense, but when he decided to move into interiors is when I think he found a truely unique and qonderful voice and spoke to the times. 

His furniture designs are sleek and elegant. I would never want to live in an entire space designed by Cardin, but certain pops of his designs are crucial for a luxuriously chic feel. 

With his goals of building the first global empire, Pierre Cardin was the first couturier designer to target the Japanese market when he visited there in 1959. In 1978, he signed production agreements with the Soviet Union. The next year, he organized a trade agreement with the People’s Republic of China to produce Pierre Cardin clothes, one of the first western companies to do business in China. In 1983, he opened the first western-owned restaurant in China, Maxim’s. Take a look at the Maxim's Hotel in Paris here. 

Today, the Pierre Cardin empire employs over 180,000 workers in 70 countries. His fashion lines include menswear, eyewear, fragrance, women’s fashion, and lingerie. His name appears on products from fashion to wine, bicycles to furniture. Pierre Cardin licenses over 840 products in 98 countries. He owns the Maxim’s hotel and restaurant chain that includes restaurants in five countries and a product line of gourmet foods. A tireless businessman, he boasts that he has never borrowed a franc from the bank. He has become the world’s richest Haute Couture designer, but despite his success, he shuns advertising.

Pierre Cardin lives in Paris and collects furniture, parrots, and couture clothing.