How Pierre Cardin Democratized Couture
365 days of fashion: the e-ncyclopedia of fashion
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
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Pierre Cardin (1922 - 2020), an Italian-born naturalised-French fashion designer would have celebrated his 102nd birthday today. Most known for his futuristic and unisex collections (La Cardine, The Bubble dress, the Egg carton dress, and the Cosmocorps collection are among his landmarks,) Cardin was among the leading French couturiers of the second half of the 20th century.
During the Second World War, Pierre Cardin was based in Vichy, a French town, and began his career at Manby, a well-reputed house where he learned about tailoring. To escape from the Service du Travail Obligatoire (Compulsory Work Service, a forced enlistment and deportation of hundreds of thousands of French workers to Nazi Germany to work as forced labor for their war effort,) he became an accountant at the French Cross.
Arriving in Paris in 1946, he briefly worked at Paquin and Schiaparelli and later joined Christian Dior, where he became the first tailor to join the young house and helped the founder to create his first New Look Collection. An aspiring costume designer at first, Cardin also helped Jean Cocteau to design costumes for his movie Beauty and the Beast.
In 1950, Cardin founded his eponymous label with 20,000 Francs of savings and opened his first women’s shop called “Eve” in 1954, followed by a men’s shop “Adam”