Pierre Cardin was trained in the Paris studios of Christian Dior, Elsa Schiaparelli and Jeanne Paquin, and he saw his future at a very young age.

On the basis of his mentor’s pioneering innovation, Cardin quickly became famous worldwide with his ready-to-wear designer brand, and established a clothing by putting his name not only on clothing, but also on sunglasses, suitcases, carpets and even kitchen utensils. And product empire.

Cardin is the first women's designer to launch a men's collection-ties, shirts, jackets, etc.-and the first French women's designer to venture eastward into Asia, where most of his product catalogs are made. An untapped market awaits there.

By the end of the 1960s, his name alone attracted fashionistas, who found his designs fashionable, provocative, and sometimes unbelievable.

Cardin’s family told the French media that Cardin died in a hospital outside of Paris on Tuesday and was admired and imitated until the end. The French Academy of Fine Arts announced his death in a tweet, but did not give the cause of death. Cardan is 98 years old.

Nine years after opening the first salon in 1950, Cardin broke the tradition of custom clothing and designed a ready-to-wear collection for the Paris department store Printemps. With this, he became the first French couturier to create designer brand ready-to-wear.

He also became the first French designer to enter the Asian fashion market. He first started business in Japan in 1957 and then in China in the 1970s. In 1979, he held the first French fashion show in Beijing.

"This is Cardin's vision," Valerie Steele, a fashion historian at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, told The Times a few years ago. "Today, the fashion industry is very dependent on Asia, not only for the production of clothing, but also the main consumer market." Kadan leads the way, she said.

He has no permission to invent the designer. His former employer, Dior, set foot in the field in the late 1940s, when he wrote his name on women's stockings made by an American manufacturer. Cardan also did not invent designer boutiques. His other former employer, Schiaparelli, opened his own store in Paris, which was a novelty at the time.

However, it was Cardan who extended these ideas to a global scale. "He is a talented designer and a talented businessman. UCLA Youth Research Library Special Collection Curator and fashion historian Victoria Steele said in an interview with The Times in 2005." In his fashion design and his way of business, he adapted to his historical moments. He showed a certain shrewdness. "

He first set foot in the ready-to-wear business to help fund customized order collections.

"All my money is used for my fashion show, and I need some commercial advertisements to support my employees," Cardan told the Financial Times of London in 2000. What do you produce? '"

His name was quickly reminiscent of bold geometric figures, full of youthful self-confidence. He designed an A-line mini dress with high boots, a "bubble" dress with a belt at the hem, and a "petticoat" skirt with a tapering hem.

For men, when the Beatles began wearing them in the early 1960s, his collarless jackets set off a trend in Europe and the United States.

In the past ten years, Cardin's non-traditional style has broken through the limits of French fashion, and this industry is still mainly supported by old conservative funds. Most French designers at the same level use only fine silk and wool, while Cardin tries to use synthetic fabrics.

He is known as the "space age" designer, his jumpsuit implies a space capsule uniform, and the three-layer dress surrounds a person like a circling dish. For men, his fitted pullover seems to be inspired by the wardrobe of "Star Trek".

Movie star friends Shirley McLean, Charlotte Lamplin, Jeanne Morrow and others have front-row seats at his Paris fashion show, which makes his image even more charming.

Although his celebrity image revolves around avant-garde fashion, a considerable part of each series contains more traditional styles. Since he opened his own salon in the 1950s, he has shown clever updates of fashion creations to attract more conservative clients. His linen dress with a cross-neckline and a jacket with folds from the shoulder to the hem were successful in the 1950s. His tweed suit with a "cocoon" cloak was very popular in the 1960s. These and similar styles are more in line with the powerful women who wear his label in public life, including Claude, wife of French President Georges Pompidou, and Eva Veron, the first lady of Argentina.

He achieved a similar balance in his menswear collection, leading the trend with his updated British Edwardian style and his Beatles jackets, setting off the "peacock revolution" of men's fashion in the 1960s, and at the same time showing on the staples of menswear A relatively mild change. He is known for his narrow tailored suits and jackets with a narrow waist, and his designs are aimed at many men in France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Once he redefines the role of French couture designer, he begins to meet new challenges. He opened Espace Cardin in 1970, a contemporary theater and music theater in Paris, serving his passion for art. In a subtle way, this is also in his international business interests. In the early 1980s, when he brought the rock opera "Junon and Avos" from Moscow to Kadan Square, he was negotiating a new market in the Soviet Union.

"People think that because you are a fashion designer, you must be an idiot," Cardin said in an interview with The Times in 1971. "I am happy to say that my last two series have been particularly brilliant successes. This makes it harder for people to criticize what I have done."

In 1981, he bought Maxim's, a typical Parisian restaurant, and quickly pointed out which tables were once the favorites of legendary romantic couples; the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, billionaire Aristotle Onassis, and opera star Maria Callas .

He opened replicas of Maxim's in cities such as London and Singapore, and created Maxim's boutiques for iconic porcelain, specialty foods and novelties.

Then he opened the luxury hotel "Residence Maxim" in Paris, followed by a series of Maxim hotels in Paris, one of which opened in Palm Springs in 1986. Four years later, it became part of the Hyatt hotel chain.

Cardin's licensing business grew to include approximately 800 agreements in the 1980s. For ten years, Yves St. Laurent and Hubert de Givenchy in Paris, Gucci, Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren and other American designers in Italy have all expanded in the same way.

Cardan is one step ahead. "His name can be worn, walked, sleeped, sat on, chewed, drunk, flew, trampled or driven in 69 countries," Time magazine pointed out in 1979.

He is a well-proportioned, energetic person with deep and sensitive eyes and a diary of a globetrotter. He makes no secret that work and entertainment are the same to him. He travels a lot, is unmarried all his life, and has few friends. In the years since the mid-1950s, his most loyal partner was his chief design assistant Andre Oliver.

He was very cautious about his relationship, but could not hide his relationship with Moreau in the early 1960s. She later said that she pursued him, starting with the flowers they gave him shortly after they met.

The couple was photographed sunbathing in the theater and on the yacht. However, by 1965, Cardan had continued to advance. "I have fallen in love with her for five years, but... we will never be alone, it's too much," he said in an interview with The New York Times in 2002.

While they were together, Cardin designed costumes for several of Moreau's films, including "Angel Bay" in 1963 and "Yellow Rolls Royce" in 1964. This is not his only movie adventure. One of his earliest works was Jean Cocteau's 1946 film "Beauty and the Beast" as a costume designer. He also designed the wardrobe for Patrick Macnee, the lead actor in the 1960s TV series "The Avengers."

Traveling around the world to meet celebrities and mentioning their names in conversations became the guiding principle of Kadan's life. "I know all the stars," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1986. "Gregory Parker, Gary Grant, Barbra Streisand, Lisa Minnelli, Mrs. Gorbachev, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the Queen of Japan, these are the people I like to meet. "

During his travels, he bought about 30 houses around the world, but his real home is Paris. He lives in a townhouse near the office of Faubourg Saint-Honoré. He also spent some time in the "Bubble Palace" built on the French Riviera in the 1970s. The concrete and glass creations of French architect Antti Lovage are filled with furniture designed by Cardin. In 1977, he began mass production of a series of modern furniture.

The media is rarely invited to Cardan’s townhouse, which he shares with his sister Jenny. She is 20 years older than him. She is a mother who takes care of the housework and cooks for him.

Cardin was born on July 2, 1922 in San André de Barbara near Venice, Italy. His parents are French Alessandro and Maria. He is the youngest of 11 children. His family later moved to the south of France.

When he was a teenager, Cardan became an apprentice to a tailor. During World War II, he was an accountant for the French Red Cross. He moved to Paris in 1945 and found his first job in the haute couture business of the Paquin House.

He continued to work for Schiaparelli for a while, then moved to Dior in 46, where he became the head of the studio. Four years later, 28-year-old Cardan opened his own salon.

In the 60s and 70s, he has been at the top of the fashion industry. Long after his heyday, even if it wasn't his latest design, he was admired for its staying power. "In such a competitive field, his absolute longevity is extraordinary," Valerie Steele said of Cardin's career.

He attributes his success to his imaginative ideas, frequent new ventures and pay-as-you-go business policies. "I don't borrow money," he told the New York Times in 1987. "I build for myself, day after day, step by step."

By the late 1980s, Cardin's business had brought about $1 billion in wholesale revenue, wrote Richard Molas, author of "Pierre Cardin, Become the Labeler" (1991). "Cardan must earn between 35 million and 45 million US dollars in royalties worldwide each year," Morais wrote. "This is purely using cash to do what I want to do."

By the 1990s, the phenomenon of designer authorization had tarnished the image of many big names in the fashion industry, and Kadan was one of them. When imitating manufacturers to make counterfeit designer logo wallets, sunglasses, suitcases and scarves and sell them at exchanges and boardwalks, the problem was not solved.

His competitors cut their licensing contracts in the 1990s, hoping to regain their elite status, but Cardin hardly cut his work. At the same time, senior officials at major men's clothing stores that canceled orders said the quality of his best merchandise appeared to be declining.

"Cardin made a significant contribution to the design of the 20th century, but his license has overshadowed his creative contribution," Valerie Steele said in 2002.

Rourke is a former staff writer for The New York Times.

A must-read story from the Los Angeles Times

Get the most important news of the day through today’s headlines that we send every morning of the working day.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More from the Los Angeles Times

Jerry Douglas, the family patriarch of "Young and the Restless" in 30 years, passed away

Moody Blues drummer and co-founder Graeme Edge dies at the age of 80

Sylvery Lotringer, an intellectual who instilled French theory into the American art world, at the age of 83

FW de Klerk, the last apartheid president of South Africa who won the Nobel Prize with Mandela, dies

Search for obituaries and guestbooks on Legacy.com

Commemorate loved ones, place obituaries

Dean Stockwell, a fanatical star of "Blue Velvet" and "Quantum Leap", dies

Bobby Kirkhart, the atheist parent of Los Angeles, dies at the age of 78

Los Angeles Times photographer Bill Beebe wade into the sea to take iconic Kennedy photos at the age of 94

Ginny Mancini dies; widow of big band singer, Los Angeles philanthropist and composer Henry Mancini

Ronnie Wilson, co-founder of Gap Band, dies at the age of 73

The powerful legacy of General Jeff Page, West Coast hip-hop pioneer and "Sliding Mayor"