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Curved space brooklyn8/1/2023 ![]() ![]() He also did very futuristic menswear, which was not worn much but certainly had a great visual impact in magazines of the time.” ![]() And, very importantly, he was looking into somewhat unisex fashions as well, just like Courrèges, such as women in trousers. He did all his Space Age-looking fashion with new materials, different kinds of plastic. Pierre Cardin “was super important in creating futuristic-looking fashion,” says Valerie Steele, chief curator at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York. “The French never really had a youth culture the way Britain and America did, so they had to come up with a futuristic metaphor for youth. Like André Courrèges, a former engineer also inhabited by a desire for discovery during the Space Age, Pierre Cardin drew on images from this era to reinvent shapes and materials, create more relaxed cuts, and redefine the visual codes of modernity. Driven by freedom and anti-conformism, the designer confidently rid himself of the couture calendar and aesthetic references to the past. This included clothing, fragrances, and watches, later followed by hundreds of spin-off products, from matches to the now-iconic tins of sardines. Through these arrangements, subcontractors could buy the rights to sell products under the Cardin name. To take advantage of globalization while preventing potential copies of his creations, Pierre Cardin built an empire of license contracts. Department stores all over the world were soon stocking his womenswear line, followed by his menswear pieces. ![]() Conservatives turned their back on him, but others bought into his vision. This bold move brought high fashion and designer cuts to the masses. ![]() He released his first collection in 1953, caused a stir in 1954 with his bubble dress, designed outfits for Jackie Kennedy in 1957, then rewrote the codes of men’s fashion with “jackets you could use to loosen bolts on a car, but also wear at the Windsor.”įrustrated by the couture world, which he considered too limited and elitist, the former tailor-created his first ready-to-wear line for Parisian department store Printemps in 1959, sparking an uproar in this corseted milieu. In 1952, he revolutionized the wool coat with his “red sun pleat” model, now exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum. His boldness, inventiveness, and sense of detail and cut were an instant hit. Buoyed by this experience, the driven young man launched his own brand in 1950, specializing in stage costumes and ball gowns. He spent three years in this role, contributing to the New Look revolution and the success of the legendary Bar suit. After jobs in the studios of Jeanne Paquin, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Christian Bérard, for whom he made masks and costumes for Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, he became the head tailor at Christian Dior. At 14, he began his career as an apprentice at Chez Bompuis, a tailor in Saint-Etienne, before working in Vichy at the age of 17 and moving to Paris in 1945. He decided he would become a star of the fashion world at the age of eight. Pierre Cardin was born in 1922, the youngest of six in a family of Venetian farmers who fled to France in the wake of fascism. ![]()
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