
Fashion designer Pierre Cardin is most associated with the bold and playful fashions of the 1960s — but he was always looking to the future. Cardin was born on July 7, 1922, while his French parents were either on vacation or working in Italy. He was raised in France, where he started working as a tailor as a teenager. During World War II, he volunteered in the French Red Cross.
Although he worked under notable couturiers — including Elsa Schiaparelli and Christian Dior — in the ’40s and ’50s, Cardin was a next-generation designer. His first split from tradition came in 1957, when he left Paris’ couture governing body so he could have more control over licensing. Two years later, he sold a ready-to-wear line to a store.
Cardin’s first major success was his menswear. He rejected the bulkiness of traditional male tailoring in favor of unfussy, slimline, collarless suits. As the New York Times reported in his obituary, in 1966, the Beatles appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” wearing suits similar to a style Cardin had introduced in 1960 (based on those worn by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru), giving Cardin his big break in America. That decade, the future-facing Cardin also got in on the popular space craze.
In his later years, Cardin started focusing on licensing his various brands, as well as designing in his own right. Not just clothes, but matches, pickles, a hotel chain, and fruit juice. He died aged 98 on December 29, 2020.