Pierre Cardin: Biography and Background

Pietro Costante Cardin (2 July 1922 – 29 December 2020), known as Pierre Cardin, was an Italian-French fashion designer. He is known for what were his avant-garde style and Space Age designs. He preferred geometric shapes and motifs, often ignoring the female form. He advanced into unisex fashions, sometimes experimental, and not always practical. He founded his fashion house in 1950 and introduced the "bubble dress" in 1954.

Though he is remembered today mostly for his Space Age late '60s womenswear, during the 1960s and first half of the '70s he was better known as the top menswear designer of the time, the man who had reintroduced shaped, fitted suits to the public after a long period of looser fit in men's clothes. Cardin was often said to have been the main non-British leader of the Peacock Revolution that had begun in the UK. Retailers noted that Cardin's popularity had taught men to associate a designer's name with their clothing the way women had long done. His menswear collection from the year 1960 was so influential that the Beatles' tailor Dougie Millings copied its collarless suits for the group in 1963.

Cardin was designated a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1991, and a United Nations FAO Goodwill Ambassador in 2009.

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