Pierre Cardin

French fashion designer, born in Venice, NE Italy. After working during World War 2 for a tailor in Vichy, he went to Paris in 1944. He worked in fashion houses and on costume design, notably for Cocteau's film Beauty and the Beast (1947). He opened his own house in 1953, and has since been prominent in fashion for both women and men.

Pierre Cardin is a fashion designer.

Cardin was the first couturier to turn to Japan as a high fashion market when he travelled there in 1959.

In 1959, he was expelled from the Chambre Syndicale for launching a ready-to-wear collection for the Printemps department store as the first couturier in Paris, but was soon reinstated. However, he resigned from the Chambre Syndicale in 1966 and now shows his collections in his own venue, the Espace Cardin (opened 1971) in Paris, formerly the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, near the American Embassy.

His fellow designer, Andrè Oliver, who joined him in 1971 and assumed responsibility for the haute couture collections in 1987, died in 1993.

Cardin was a member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture et du Prêt-à-Porter and of the Maison du Haute Couture from 1953 to 1993. Like many other designers today, Cardin decided in 1994 to show his collection only to a small circle of selected clients and journalists.

He purchased Maxim's restaurants in 1981 and soon opened branches in New York, London, and Beijing (1983).

Cardin owns the ruins of the castle in Lacoste, Vaucluse that was formerly inhabitated by the Marquis de Sade.

He is also mentioned in a Jonathan Richman song called "Everyday Clothes".