FIRST FASHION DIPLOMAT: PIERRE CARDIN
DENIZ AKKAYA
Known for his futuristic designs and fashion licensing model, the designer passed away at the age of 98 last week.
Cardin, who was born near Venice on July 2, 1922, got his education in Saint Etienne. At the age of 17 he went to work for a tailor in the city of Vichy. However, tailoring was not the only dream of Pierre, he also dreamt of acting, professional modeling and dancing. We can clearly see Cardin’s diversity and unlimited imagination in the way he revolutionized the fashion industry in the 60s and 70s.
Arriving in Paris in 1945, the designer made theatrical masks and costumes for Jean Cocteau’s film “The Beauty and The Beast,” and a year later began working for the then-unknown Christian Dior. Pierre’s first major commercial venture was his collaboration with the Printemps department store in the late 1950s. However, this collaboration led to his brief expulsion from the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, an association of French fashion designers. At that time, members of this union were forbidden to organize a fashion show anywhere but their Paris ateliers.
Cardin has never listened to criticism, although he has been accused of lowering brand value and destroying the concept of luxury in general. Cardin sold his collections in department stores in the late 1950s; He was the first designer to enter the licensing business for perfumes, accessories and even food, which is a huge source of profits for today’s brands. Cardin has put his name on everything from razors to household items to even cheap boxer shorts.
While it’s hard to imagine decades later, Armani chocolates, Bulgari Hotels and Gucci sunglasses are all based on Cardin’s realisation that the glory of a fashion brand has endless commercial potential.
Pierre understood the importance of getting into foreign markets long before other international brands and pushed all boundaries to achieve this. Cardin, who organized a fashion show in Beijing in 1979 when Communist China was still largely closed to the outside world, became the first Western designer to organize a major fashion show in China when he turned the Beijing National Palace of Culture into a runway. As the communist nation began to open its borders to foreign cultural influences and trade, Cardin saw an opportunity to build a bridge here. Creating echoes in people’s imaginations with its unique styles, the brand has become a symbol of luxury for generations for Chinese consumers. To adhere to the diplomatic principles of cultural exchange, the designer made another “first” by inviting twelve Chinese models to his fashion show in Paris for Paris Fashion Week in 1985. In 2018, after forty years in the industry, the Chinese government granted the fashion designer exclusive rights to hold a historical retrospective show on the country’s most famous landmark, the Great Wall. Every global brand operating in China today thanks Cardin.
The designer fell in love with Russian culture and the Russian space program on his first visit behind the Iron Curtain in 1963. The first woman to enter Earth orbit, Valentina Tereshkova, has ignited her lifelong fascination with the cosmos and its discovery. In the 1970s, Cardin became the first Western brand to trade textiles from Soviet manufacturers. The last First Lady of the USSR, Raisa Gorbacheva, wore Cardin’s designs at state ceremonies and on visits abroad. Thus, Cardin’s designs also played a formative role for the post-Soviet sense of style. In 1991, Cardin became the first fashion designer to organize a fashion show in the iconic Red Square, where military parades are usually held. About 200,000 people attended the event, making it one of the biggest fashion shows in history. Pierre and his brand were seen as a promising symbol of a new world beyond Cold War hostilities. Cardin was given more special rights by another state in 2011: the government of Vladimir Putin asked Cardin to hold a space-themed fashion show in the Kremlin to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first space flight! A Cardin has engaged in cultural diplomacy in Russia throughout its modern history. No fashion brand has even been able to approach Cardin’s political influence that goes beyond fashion today. These two examples is more than enough to secure her fashion diplomacy legacy in the history books!
Cardin also opened new businesses in the 1980s, buying the famous Paris restaurant Maxim’s and opening replica retail stores around the world. He further bolstered his investment by launching Minim’s, a fantasy fast-food chain that reproduces the Belle Epoque decor of Parisian restaurants.
True to his taste for futuristic design, Cardin also owns the Palais des Bulles in one of the most exclusive areas of the French Riviera and a chateau in the village of Lacoste that once belonged to the Marquis de Sade.
In February this year, his last collaboration was with a young designer 70 years younger than him. Pierre Courtial, 27, inaugurated a collection of pieces reflecting the geometric aesthetics of the master designer in Cardin’s studio in Rue Saint-Honore, Paris. “I’ve always tried to be different, to be myself, ” Cardin, who rates authenticity above everything else, told Reuters. “It doesn’t matter if people like it or not,” he said.
Unlike his predecessors, Cardin demonstrated the power of fashion to convey democratic ideas and develop ideals of self-expression in a world before the internet. Goodbye Pierre Cardin, World’s first fashion diplomat…
