In Venice, in Palazzo Ca’ Bragadin, an exhibition space dedicated to the brilliant work of the Italian-French designer opens. A destination not only for fashion enthusiasts, but for anyone who loves radical creativity.
Mr Cardin, Pierre Cardin, liked to meet what he called the “girls of the Italian press”. At every Christian Dior fashion show, he was the first guest to arrive on Avenue Montaigne, elegant, smiling, waiting for the door of number 30 to open, he told of when he, very young, had worked with Monsieur Dior, of that time they had studied the famous Bar jacket together, of how hand pleating was born, and so on with a series of anecdotes from the history of elegance.
A museum is finally dedicated to this fashion genius, ironic and multidisciplinary creative, with one eye on inventiveness and two on business, in Venice, in the Palazzo Ca’ Bragadin on Calle della Regina, in the Santa Croce district, his dear home for the periods of Italian, or rather Venetian, break. He was born in San Biagio di Callalta, in the province of Venice, on 2 June 1922.
A total of 350 pieces, made between 1950 and 2020, distributed over a thousand square meters to retrace the bulimic creative dynamism of a designer who dressed the Beatles, launched Jean Paul Gaultier, sent dizzying miniskirts on the catwalk, paraded on the Great Wall, shook hands with Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Karol Wojtyła and, above all, was the first to go beyond the boundaries of clothes to rethink and designing hotels, restaurants, furniture, with his avant-garde and ironic stylistic signature.
The architect of this inauguration is Rodrigo Balisicati-Cardin, great-nephew of the designer and since 2000 administrator of the group and of his uncle’s legacy. «We chose this date, September 3, for the inauguration of the Cardin museum, because exactly 75 years ago my uncle designed 30 costumes for the legendary “Ball of the Century”, given by Charles de Beistegui at Palazzo Labia. Everyone was there at that ball, from Salvator Dalì to Orson Welles, from the Aga Khan to Cecil Beaton” says Rodrigo Balisicati-Cardin. «The order was placed with Christian Dior who, due to lack of time, asked Pierre Cardin, who had just opened his atelier, to take care of it. It was also an economic success because that significant sum of money allowed my uncle to start his business without resorting to banks.”
In the museum, displayed on the lower floor, the famous utilitarian sculptures could not be missing, that is, furniture, lamps and objects, works of design whose radical modernity continued to inspire architects, designers and artists, well beyond the 1960s. An influence that still remains very much alive and that the president of the maison Pierre Cardin wishes to strengthen precisely through this permanent and dynamic exhibition project, with pieces in rotation every six months and with dedicated catalogues, taking advantage of the over a thousand dresses that are part of the heritage of the maison, and kept in a warehouse outside Paris.
A man of disruption, progressive and visionary, Pierre Cardin loved to describe his work this way: «Tailoring, for me, is the opportunity to continue my career as an architect. A dress is like a house, you have to feel at home. Every model I conceive is an architectural and sculptural construction; the only difference is that the shapes move.”
