Pierre Cardin museum brings designer’s futurist style to Venice

VENICE

French fashion designer Pierre Cardin poses in front of his futuristic clothing creations. (AP Photo)

Hundreds of style-setting creations from the late designer Pierre Cardin will fill his Venice palazzo later this month in a new museum celebrating the cutting-edge vision of fashion’s futurist.

A costume ball at Cardin’s Venetian home of nearly 40 years, the Palazzo Bragadin, helped kick off the museum opening, scheduled for Sept. 13.

Cardin, the Italian-born French couturier who died in December 2020 at the age of 98, was a stalwart of swinging 1960s fashion with his unisex, space-age designs that created youth-culture shockwaves from the boulevards of Paris to Carnaby Street in London.

Knit minidresses with bold geometric patterns, unexpected cut-outs and a penchant for synthetic fabrics cemented Cardin’s reputation as a modernist in tune with the zeitgeist of the decade.

Cardin used his palazzo in Venice, which he bought in 1981, as a retreat and a place to refuel his imagination, said his nephew, Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, chief executive of the label, whose creative atelier remains in Paris.

The museum seeks to remind viewers of the innovative design sensibility of the couturier, who worked under Elsa Schiaparelli and Christian Dior in Paris before launching his own line in 1950.

Cardin sought to democratize fashion through the launch of a ready-to-wear line in 1959, a shocking concept at the time that got him temporarily kicked out of the French haute couture governing body, but which was quickly copied by rivals.

Around 130 outfits fill the sumptuous rooms of the palazzo, ranging from 1951 to 2018: Here an emerald green knit belted tunic with dramatic cut-outs at the sides from 1971, there a 1991 black velvet evening gown adorned with an oversized taffeta rose at the hips.

A 1963 sleeveless minidress in silver silk with a honeycomb pattern has a bow at the neck serving as a collar, while a 1993 dress in pumpkin and black features dramatic pleats flowing from the bodice.

Basilicati-Cardin said that for his uncle, the body was secondary to what it supported, the sculpture of the clothing.

“His entire life was based on structures; all his garments are architectural, nothing purely fluid,” he said.

“He considered his dresses as sculptures.”