Butler's Cinema Scene

Classic ’60s clothing by Pierre Cardin

“HOUSE OF CARDIN” My rating: B+ 

95 minutes | No MPAA rating

With only a little hyperbole, an admirer of Pierre Cardin tells the makers of “House of Cardin” that virtually everyone on earth knows the Cardin name.

Apparently, though, nobody knows the man.

Early on in P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes’ documentary, one of Cardin’s cohorts is asked to describe the great designer on a basic human level…and can muster only a blank and helpless look.

In old interview footage Cardin (he’s now 98 years young) admits to having “no sense of self…it’s not me, it’s the brand.”

Indeed, we’re three fourths of the way through this movie before the topic turns to something as fundamental as its subject’s sexuality…and even then it’s more a case of suggestion than assertion.

But if the Cardin personality is elusive, his accomplishments are not.  “House of Cardin” will prove a real eye-opener for those of us (this writer included), who pretty much assumed he was a Parisian fashion designer, period.

The doc’s format mixes filmed interviews Cardin has done over the decades, recent footage of the man still at work and holding court (he’s charming without ever revealing too much), archival photos and footage and tons of reminiscences by the likes of rocker Alice Cooper (Cardin was responsible for bringing Cooper’s Grand Guignol stage show to Paris in the early ’70s), actress Sharon Stone and model Naomi Campbell.

But some of the most informative stuff comes from his colleagues, the people who have worked with him for years and regard him as the benevolent if often exacting father of their big family. The guy couldn’t be a total cipher and elicit that sort of love.

The film deals with the basic biographical stuff up front.  Cardin is Italian, not French.  His family fled Mussolini’s fascist state when Pierre was a boy. During the war he worked for the French Red Cross in Vichy.  With the peace he came to Paris and, with unbelievable good luck, immediately began working in the haute couture fashion houses (Paquin, Dior) to which he aspired.

This self-taught clothing maker was soon collaborating with heavy-duty artistic types like filmmaker/poet Jean Cocteau and actor Jean Marais.  “I was a very good-looking young man,” the white-haired Cardin recalls.  “So everyone wanted to sleep with me.”

Pierre Cardin, still running the show at age 98

He struck out with his own designs, making a splash with quintessentially ’60s fashions that  mixed the playful with the futuristic. Even today those outfits look like something from a sci-fi movie set 100 years from now.

As often as not Cardin’s outfits hid the female form rather than accentuating it. He maintained that “being able to move freely is empowering.”

He was the inspiration for the Beatle’s collarless suit coats.

He defied the high-fashion world by making mass-produced ready-to-wear outfits.  It was his deliberate attempt to democratize fashion.

He was the first big-name designer to crank out entire lines of men’s clothing. And he defied convention by employing models of all races for his runway shows and advertising.

Cardin designed his own furniture brand…some of these astonishingly beautiful items look like Ikea on acid.

Back in 1981 he bought the great Paris restaurant Maxim’s (he maintains its art nouveau embellishments were at the time futuristic) and has subsequently opened franchises on several continents.

He is considered a “hero of the Revolution” in China for bringing that country’s near-moribund silk industry back to international prominence in the 1980s.

Cardin is a philanthropist who has thrown millions behind aspiring young artists. For decades he ran the Espace Cardin, an avant garde performance center in Paris (young Gerard DePardieu was a stage hand), bringing in everything from cutting-edge theater to rock ‘n’ roll. What it lost in money, he says, it more than made up for in prestige.

Today more than 800 products — ranging from jewelry and sunglasses to neckties and mineral water (“I designed the bottle”) — bear the Cardin name. Nearly 90,000 individuals around the globe work for Cardin companies.

Toward the end of “House of Cardin” the filmmakers turn to his two most famous love affairs, his years with fellow designer Andre Oliver (described by one observer as the love of Cardin’s life) and his subsequent relationship (platonic love? friends with benefits?) with the great actress Jeanne Moreau. The precise nature of those relationships are not examined in any depth, probably because Cardin has no interest in rehashing old affairs when there’s new business to oversee.

Among his latest efforts is the creation of a brand new performance venue (arena, stage, movie theater) in a castle formerly owned by the Marquis de Sade. By the time the project is up and running Cardin will be well past 100 years old.

Nevertheless, I expect him to personally cut the ribbon.

| Robert W. Butler