The licensing King - Pierre Cardin

THE LICENSING KING

He was the legendary French-Italian designer, who broke the mould signing his name to everything from wrist watches to sardines, but in his heyday Pierre Cardin had an eye for great style

LUXURY LIVING FASHION

In a career spanning more than three-quarters of a century, Pierre Cardin who sadly passed away at the age of 98 is a signature that everyone consciously or even subconsciously will have seen. Just take a look around your local TK Maxx and you’ll see his fancy cursive signature emblazed upon thousands of products from underpants to pens to saucepans to bed sheets but before he became consumed with selling his brand name to everything and anything Cardin was a pioneering avant garde designer who pioneered the sci-fi look of the 1960’s.

Born in 1922, Cardin began his career conventionally enough, in the storied salons of French haute couture, as WW II came to an end he began work with the houses of Paquin and Schiaparelli working with Elsa Schiaparelli until he became head of Christian Dior’s tailleure atelier in 1947, where he took charge of creating Dior’s famous 1947 New Look collection, a style of dress intended to emphasize femininity in women’s clothing.

Three years later, in 1950, he established his own maison de couture – partly in a fit of pique at being questioned by police following the leaking of Dior’s new season designs to copyists. He became an established business unveiling his first real collection in 1953 which was quickly followed, with the 1954 launch of the celebrated “bubble” dress, which put his name on the map. As haute couture began to decline, ready-to-wear (‘prêt-à-porter’) soared with his first ready-towear show in 1959 at Paris’ Printemps department store, where he combined the “mini” and the “maxi” skirts of introducing a new hemline that had long pom-pom panels or fringes an act that got him temporarily kicked out of the Chambre Syndicale.

Inspired by space exploration Cardin visited NASA in 1970, where he tried on the original spacesuit worn by the first human to set foot on the moon, this inspired Cardin to unveil another new trend: “mod chic” a look that consisted of dresses with slits and batwing sleeves with novel dimensions, and mixed circular movement and gypsy skirts with structured tops. These dramatic, geometric silhouettes in new synthetic fabrics defied traditionally feminine styles of the era, bringing Space Age–chic to the public

It was during this time that Cardin saw the potential for licensing with the demand for goods bearing a fashionable name becoming too lucrative to ignore, signing over 850 agreements in more than 140 countries on five continents encompassing clothing accessories, furniture, household products and fragrances.

“I wash with my own soap,” he once boasted. “I wear my own perfume, go to bed with my own sheets, have my own food products. I live on me.”

Chocolates, pens, cigarettes, frying pans, alarm clocks and cassette tapes, shoes, lingerie, blouses, neckwear, wallets, belts soon followed. Not content with being the king of accessories Cardin bought the French restaurant Maxim’s, creating another branding empire. During his heyday Cardin had over 904 licensing deals but as the years past so too did demand his products were increasingly regarded as cheaply made and his clothing, which, decades later, remained virtually unchanged from its 60s-era styles, felt outdated.

Today’s Cardin’s maverick business model is frowned upon, luxury houses no longer wish to have their names splashed across all manner of products to many Cardin’s nose-dive from one of the most esteemed labels in fashion to a bargain-bin cast-off serves as a cautionary tale