This fashion house was a huge success before crashing a few years after rubbing shoulders with the high spheres. She dressed Jeanne Moreau in her ordinary life as for the needs of her career. Will it finally be reborn, after 40 years of desert?
If he has changed the history of fashion forever; His name has ended up fading from our imaginations over the years. According to the fashion historian Elodie Lemaire Nowinski, he is worthy of having her awarded place in museums. Once visionary, “He thinks of fashion outside haute couture”with the desire to demystify the latter, like some of his colleagues. Paco Rabanne, Emanuel Ungaro or André Courrèges: with them, he gives birth to the futuristic aesthetics of Space Age.
After learning the tricks of the profession at Dior, he created his eponymous house in the 1950s. A few years later arrived his golden age. It was during this era that he met Jeanne Moreau; His muse, his beloved, his partner. He dresses her for many of his films – Eva Or Viva Maria To name just a few-but also in its daily train. This emblematic brand which died in the 80s is none other than Pierre Cardin.
Like the “space race” carried out on the geopolitical side, in the 60’s, Pierre Cardin has the ambition to conquer the world in aesthetic and economic terms. And that’s part that will precipitate his fall. Because to achieve this, he will make licenses “Wherever it is possible, to dilute its brand”explains the fashion historian.
He sells his name to business partners, who use it on any products: glasses, suitcases … He ends up losing control: his name finds himself despite himself on products that are not very brilliant like toilet paper … Enough to throw the brand in oblivion.
For Elodie Lemaire Nowinski, Pierre Cardin destroyed his “Brand magic”. She explains: “Cardin has perished where he sinned. The devaluation of his name by the license never allowed him to reinvent himself because he was already associated with unappropering things (…) The name Cardin no longer evokes anything. ”
Another concern: “He never managed to get out of his own Space Age aesthetics.” The last parade also confirms his statements. The references to space are literal, the first degree (moons adorning clothes, helmets dressing the heads of certain silhouettes).
However, if this style is relevant at the time, it is because it fits the historical context (the conquest of space rages between the USSR and the United States). Now it appears as a vestige of the past, almost outdated. “We must not see this parade as a futuristic interpretation, it is just a reuse to the envy of the cardin codes”adds the specialist. No innovative stylistic proposal …
Thus, it seems difficult for the claw to return to the top this year … but not impossible in the future. What he is currently missing is a bit of second degree, self -mockery. To return the situation, simply return the stigma directed against us: “They would have to have fun with this image of the Has Been logos of the 80s (…), play on what made their loss.”
The fashion historian thinks of collaborations with Marine Serre for example: she who denounces the hyper marketing of fashion, would find herself to deal with the house which sold her name in all directions … A very desigual strategy finally.