With his name on everything from frying pans to rental tuxes and a global empire that brings in a reported $1 billion in annual revenues, Pierre Cardin may be the world's richest fashion designer. He also has spent a half-century in French couture, dressing everyone from France's first lady Bernadette Chirac to Saddam Hussein. Yet the style cognoscenti have relegated him to the role of McFashion designer — too much mass, not enough class, with his 900 licenses in 140 countries. In the words of Rodney Dangerfield, he don't get no respect.
Not that it matters. At 79, the designer is beyond caring what people think. "I don't have to answer to anybody," he says in broken English during an interview in Beverly Hills.
In Las Vegas last month, Cardin presented a retrospective runway show at Hard Rock Cafe & Casino, as part of the MAGIC apparel trade show. The haberdashery haven of hip-hoppers and skate rats is hardly the place one would expect to find a rumpled, white-haired couturier. But as usual, Cardin knows what he is doing. He's reaching out to the young, vintage-obsessed set. And it looks like his innovative 1950s coats and 1960s Space Age styles are poised for a second moment.
To a certain degree, Cardin also has been a victim of his success. "Cardin contributed in a major way to late 20th-century design," says Valerie Steele, chief curator for the museum at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. "But his licensing has overshadowed the creative contribution." Cardin himself is fond of saying, "I managed to turn a label into a name."
His clothes didn't reflect social trends; they predicted them. In the 1950s, he followed Cristobal Balenciaga in pushing the chemise. He updated slender coats with dramatic cape-shaped, fluted or pleated collars. In the early 1960s, Cardin created galactic gowns with hoop skirts radiating out like satellites, and nylon "cosmonaut" suits for men. By the 1970s, he had softened his silhouette, draping women in tunic-and-pant ensembles. But his true genius was anticipating lifestyle marketing years before Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan came along.
Today, Cardin is known in France more as a cultural icon than as a creative force in fashion, like newly retired Yves Saint Laurent. He designs furniture, supports the arts by sponsoring productions at his theater in Paris and is a peace ambassador for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Cardin founded his house in 1949 and spent his early years designing costumes for Europe's grand postwar parties, including 30 for the famous 1951 ball given by Mexican millionaire Don Carlos de Beistegui at his palazzo in Venice. The experience left Cardin with a rich and loyal clientele of international socialites. He also designed costumes for Jean Cocteau's 1946 French film, "La Belle et la Bete."
Despite auspicious creations such as the "bubble dress," with a balloon-shaped skirt, Cardin's early collections often were overshadowed by Dior, Balenciaga and newcomer Saint Laurent.
"The press always had a hard time with him," says Pamela Golbin, curator of Paris' Musee de la Mode et du Textile and author of "Fashion Designers: Fifty Years of Fashion," (Watson and Guptill, 2002). His designs for couture ironically never quite fit with what was going on at the time; and "all of his details were really wacky. The sleeves, the colors, the buttons were all completely wacky," she says.
By the late 1960s, street fashion had taken hold. In Paris, Courreges and Cardin took their inspiration from outer space, using the new synthetic fibers to realize their vision.
"The English had the youth subculture driven by rock n' roll bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones," Steele says. "But the French didn't have that. The Space Age look became a metaphor for youth and the future in France. It was an optimistic message about how you could transform yourself into a modern person by wearing miniskirts, trousers with stretch and other clothes that let you move."
Cardin produced some of his most fanciful designs during this period, using holograms, plastic and vinyl in explosive colors to their full futuristic effect. A 1968 orange minidress is fitted with plastic bubbles on the breasts that pop out like headlights. A series of black stretch-fabric gowns are held up by halters sculpted from hammered metal. "At the time, it was almost vulgar," Cardin says.
He also tinkered with cutouts — panels on coats and dresses that lift to expose bare skin. "Air-conditioning," he jokes.
By the 1970s, Cardin was licensing himself across the globe. In 1979, he became the first Western designer to present a fashion show in China, just blocks away from Mao Tse-tung's mausoleum.
"It was a symbolic moment," Steele says. "Nowadays, the fashion industry depends so much on Asia not only to produce clothes but also as a major consumer market. It was far-sighted of Cardin to see that back then."
He continues to present couture collections through the 1980s and 90s. But, like Halston, the more he spread his name, the less he was taken seriously.
Cardin, who lives in a circular Palais Bulles (bubble palace) near Cannes and 31 other houses across the globe, defends his choices vigorously: "Why should I work only for the rich people⢠I want to work for the people on the street," he says.
Far from being rattled by being relegated to the dark hole of mass merchandising, he is proud of his career.
"It is what I wanted," he says. "I want to die the richest man in the world."
— Los Angeles Times
PUBLIC THEATER auditions
The Pittsburgh Public Theater will have auditions for Equity and non-Equity actors on three days this week.
= Auditions for "Man of La Mancha" will be from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. today at the O'Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Ave., Downtown. "Man of La Mancha" will run Jan. 30 through March 2, 2003, at the Public.
Actors should bring a headshot and resume and prepare two songs. Auditioners might be asked to sing from the score of "Man of La Mancha," for which music will be provided at the audition. The roles of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza already have been cast.
= Auditions for "Much Ado About Nothing" will be Tuesday and Wednesday at the O'Reilly Theater. "Much Ado About Nothing" will run Sept. 26 through Oct. 27 at the Public.
Actors should bring a headshot and resume and prepare one monologue from Shakespeare. Those auditioning also might be asked to read from scripts that will be provided.
To schedule an audition, call the audition hot line at (412) 316-8200, Ext. 752. Leave your name, phone number, union affiliation and a two-hour block of time in which you are available to audition. Your call will be returned with a confirmation of the audition time.
— Alice T. Carter
A breakfast read
The Woman's Club of Wilkinsburg will have its annual Benefit Book Breakfasts every Wednesday in March at the Wesley Room of South Avenue United Methodist Church in Wilkinsburg.
The breakfasts begin at 9 a.m. and are followed by a book review at 10:15 a.m.
The schedule:
= Dr. John W. Aupperle reviewing "A Different Drummer" by Michael K. Deaver. Wednesday.
= Larry Elbaum reviewing his book "Mysteries of the World." March 13.
= Helen Faye Roseblum reviewing "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen. March 20.
= Dr. H. Pat Albright reviewing "First Mothers" by Bonnie Angelo. March 27.
Tickets are $3, available at the door. Proceeds will benefit the club's Student Scholarship Fund, which awards college scholarships to Wilkinsburg High School graduates.
Details: (412) 271-7482.
— Regis Behe
browning on ice
Take a lunch break Downtown today to see Olympic skater Kurt Browning on the ice at The Rink at PPG Place skating alongside Special Olympics skaters.
Browning will be gliding around the rink from noon to 1 p.m. today, and while it won't be an out-and-out performance, Browning is expected to execute some of his "signature moves" — no word on whether that might include a quadruple jump. He was the first skater in history to land such a jump in competition, putting him in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Browning will return to the ice at 6 p.m. Sunday for Target Stars on Ice at Mellon Arena. Tickets for Sunday's performance: $37, $48 and $58.
Details: (412) 323-1919 or www.ticketmaster.com.
— Jolie Williamson
Hollywood in N.Y.
Manhattan is going Hollywood, with a planned $375 million studio and office tower that will be the first of its kind in the city.
The 15-story Studio City will offer more than an acre of Hollywood-style backlot on the ninth floor, with a view of the New York skyline and the Hudson River.
Planned on a West Side block between 10th and 11th avenues and 44th and 45th streets, the tower will provide production studios, equipment and offices to film, television and advertising companies.
"While there are studios all over the world, this is a vertical studio, with everything you need to go from pre-production to final production, without ever having to leave the building," Lee Tomlinson, who's in charge of marketing space in the building, said in announcing the project . "There's no other space that has both offices and production facilities in one building."
He says several international production conglomerates are negotiating to move to Studio City, which he hopes will start construction later this year and will take about two years to complete.
