Disappeared Tuesday at the age of 98, the couturier Pierre Cardin lived for four years with the actress Jeanne Moreau.
In 2018, at the microphone of Europe 1, he confided one of his biggest regrets: not having had a child with the actress, who had already had a son with her first husband.
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His futuristic style, in bright colors, remains associated in the collective imagination with France in the 1960s. Since then, Pierre Cardin's work seems to have slowly fallen into disuse, in turn supplanted by the chic relaxation of Yves Saint- Laurent, the exuberance of Christian Lacroix or the transgressive madness of Jean-Paul Gaultier, who also learned his trade from the old master.
However, Pierre Cardin, who died on Tuesday at the age of 98, was also the favorite designer of women renowned for their great elegance, and for whom a bubble dress or a vinyl necklace could perfectly compete with a silk sheath or a river of diamonds, such as the former first lady Claude Pompidou or the actress Jeanne Moreau ... his great love.
Pierre Cardin lived for four years with the latter, as he recalled in 2018 at the microphone of Isabelle Morizet on Europe 1. At the twilight of his life, the creator confided to us one of his greatest regrets: not having had child with the actress, who died in 2017.
"Having a child would have been a greater happiness for me than for her", admitted Pierre Cardin, who had agreed to receive Europe 1 in his Parisian offices, close to the Elysée Palace.
"The son of Jeanne Moreau [born in 1949, from his marriage to the director Jean-Louis Richard,
editor's note
] was painfully brought up. He lacked nothing except the essential: affection", estimated the designer.
"It was painful for Jeanne at the last moment, because she finally realized how important it was."
"I did everything I wanted"
However, the creator managed to convince the actress to have another child, before fate decides otherwise.
"We could not have had it, because Jeanne had health problems", he explained without saying more.
In the mid-1960s, the couple finally separated.
"But I would have liked to have had a little boy or a little girl. He wouldn't have wanted anything, believe it!"
Pierre Cardin, to whom love refused to have an heir, was able to console himself through a river career, which allowed him to access his wildest dreams.
"I did everything I wanted, in constructions, in travels, in meetings, in possessions… by work!", He confessed, always with Europe 1. A thirst for conquest which, perhaps to be, will have ended up eclipsing the search for family happiness.
"I had a lot of ambition from the start of my career. I think that without ambition, you have no goal. I had a goal: to succeed!"