Pierre Cardin at Brooklyn Museum
Revolutionary Space Age Designer
At 97, the space-obsessed couturier Pierre Cardin is finally getting the recognition he deserves. Timed to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, the retrospective exhibition “Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion” (running now through January 2020) at the Brooklyn Museum explores the designer’s enviable seven-decade career.
Since his early career working for famous French houses in the 1940s, such as Christian Dior, Cardin’s work has expanded from refined suiting (he designed a red wool ensemble for Jackie Kennedy in 1961) to otherworldly looks and silhouettes. His landmark moment came in 1964 with his Cosmocorps collection – a literal guidebook for mod style that featured miniskirts, dresses, and jumpsuits with geometric designs. Seven years later, Cardin became the first civilian to wear Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 spacesuit (he visited NASA to see the moon landing technology and successfully sweet talked the security guard and bribed him with a $50 bill), thus cementing his obsession with all things extraterrestrial.
“Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion” showcases Cardin’s multifaceted world, which is filled with space-age fashion, experimental textiles, and even licensing opportunities that enabled him to put his brand into closets around the world. It’s Cardin’s first NYC retrospective in 40 years, and he’s made a prediction for the next 40:
“In 2069, we will all walk on the moon or Mars wearing my Cosmocorps ensembles. Women will wear Plexiglass cloche hats and tube clothing. Men will wear elliptical pants and kinetic tunics.”
Through 170 items – hats, jewelry, clothes, and even furniture – the exhibit offers a chronological journey through his innovations. As you make your way through the galleries, you’ll find an array of forward fashion, from long aluminum necklaces, to black vinyl thigh-high men’s boots, to even “parabola” gowns – a symmetrically mirrored U-shape construction made with stretchy fabric and hoops (that all ends up laying flat for easy travel). It also features Cardin’s own fabric, Cardine, a material he developed by molding bonded, uncrushable Dynel fiber into three-dimensional patterns.
The average person may never wear a space helmet or an LED-lit jumpsuit (all on view in “Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion”), but likely will have seen the Pierre Cardin signature emblazoned somewhere. In this way, Cardin has made a twofold contribution to style: continuing to push and innovate his avant-garde work on the high end and making his name a global brand on the other. Either way, he imagines a tomorrow where his designs will be worn and used by all.
