Pierre Cardin at the inauguration of the Cardin museum in 2014. -
Jacques Brinon / AP / SIPA
Pierre Cardin died on Tuesday.
Before being a visionary businessman, Pierre Cardin was above all a virtuoso couturier.
A look back at the iconic pieces of this creation Stakhanovist.
Perfumes, cigarettes, dishes, and furniture… Pierre Cardin has multiplied the licenses so much that we sometimes forget that he was, before being a visionary businessman, a virtuoso couturier.
With Saint Laurent, Courrèges and Paco Rabanne, Pierre Cardin imagined futuristic fashion in the 1960s.
The fashion industry owes him the reinvention of men's fashion, the advent of ready-to-wear, the opening of the market in China ... The last great independent couturier, owner of his brand 100%, was above all a stakhanovist of creation.
A look back at the iconic pieces of the designer who died on Tuesday.
Bar jacket
On February 12, 1947, Christian Dior presented at 30 avenue Montaigne the first collection of his Couture house, with two distinct lines, the Corolla and the 8-shaped silhouette. One silhouette particularly captured the attention of fashion editors: a corolla skirt composed of fourteen meters of fabric topped by a jacket fitted at the waist, which requires more than 500 hours of work., which hugs the body in a new modernity: the Bar jacket.
A new style has just been born, the New Look.
Behind the majestic proportions of the Bar jacket, the work of Christian Dior's first studio, Pierre Cardin.
"I cut it, sewn it and almost worn it, I was very thin at the time," he told the microphone of Europe 1 in 2018. During the first fittings, the basques fall flat.
The young model maker has the idea of buying cotton plates at the pharmacy and folding them in an accordion to give the expected volume.
A classic from the Dior house that has crossed the ages, revisited by Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons, or even Maria Grazia Chiuri.
The costumes of "Bowler hat and leather boots"
When Pierre Cardin founded his house in 1950 at 10 rue Richepanse, he did not immediately engage in haute couture, but in costumes and masks for theater, cinema and television.
The couturier returns to his first love.
He had created the costumes in 1946 for Jean Cocteau's masterpiece, Beauty and the Beast.
We owe him in particular the impeccable costumes of John Steed and the splendid combinations of Emma Peel in
Bowler Hat and Leather Boots.
The bubble dress
In 1954, Pierre Cardin, "obsessed with the circle, which represents the moon, the chest, life" caused a sensation with a dress with an unusual design: the bubble dress.
The precursor Pierre Cardin created controversy and made a name for himself: "The garment I prefer is the one I invent for a life that does not yet exist, the world of tomorrow".
Pierre Cardin pays particular attention to cuts and shapes.
“My way of working is to make a sculpture and put the body in it,” he said.
This earned the models parading for Cardin the nickname “living sculptures”.
The Beatles cylinder jackets
Pierre Cardin launches his first men's collection, entitled “Cylindre”.
The flagship piece of this collection are the collarless jackets "with which you can unscrew a car bolt, but also go to Windsor", he explained, which he parades by students rather than models.
New controversy and new success: the Beatles stylist copies the couturier to create the famous Mao collar jacket worn in concert by the group.
Porthole chasubles
Pierre Cardin is fascinated by science fiction.
In the 1960s, he once again shook the fashion world with his futuristic silhouettes with colors and patterns borrowed from pop art and op art, and the incorporation of materials hitherto unseen: vinyl, plastic or still rubber.
His famous porthole cutout chasubles definitely propel the designer into Space Age.
The cosmocorps combination
In 1968, Pierre Cardin innovated again with the Cosmocorps, a unisex integral suit.
“The first to wear it in Paris was the photographer François-Marie Banier.
I still see him with Edmonde Charles-Roux, then editor-in-chief of Vogue, on the back of his motorcycle!
We were praised by the press but we did not sell one, ”he laughed in 2010 in the columns of
L'Express
.
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