Pierre Cardin

Cardin was born near Treviso in northern Italy, the son of Maria Montagner and Alessandro Cardin.{{cite web|url= https://www.wsj.com/articles/pierre-cardin-sent-fashion-out-of-this-world-11597768245|title=Pierre Cardin Sent Fashion Out of This World |first=Marc|last=Myers |date=18 August 2020 |website=wsj.com}} His parents were wealthy wine merchants, but lost their fortune in World War I.{{cite book|last=Snodgrass |first=Mary Ellen |title=World Clothing and Fashion: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Social Influence |year=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0765683007}} To escape the blackshirts they left Italy and settled in Saint-Étienne, France in 1924 along with his ten siblings.{{cite web|url= https://www.italyonthisday.com/2017/07/pierre-cardin-fashion-designer.html |title=Pierre Cardin - fashion designer |publisher=Itay On This Day |access-date=31 December 2020}}{{cite book|last=Hesse|first=Jean-Pascal |title=Pierre Cardin: 60 Years of Innovation|year=2010 |publisher=Assouline|isbn=978-2-7594-0424-7}} His father wanted him to study architecture, but from childhood he was interested in dressmaking{{cite web|url= https://library.scad.edu/patroninfo?/0/redirect=/wamvalidate?url=http%3A%2F%2F0-academic.eb.com.library.scad.edu%3A80%2Flevels%2Fcollegiate%2Farticle%2FPierre-Cardin%2F20295 |title=Savannah College of Art and Design |website=library.scad.edu}} and at age fourteen apprenticed with Saint-Étienne tailor Louis Bompuis.{{cite journal |editor1-last=Camière |editor1-first=Marie |title=Portrait: Pierre Cardin, une destinée sur mesure |journal=Loire Magazine |date=2012-07-01 |issue=94 |page=30 |url=https://www.loire.fr/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-06/lm94_bd.pdf |access-date=2025-03-07 |location=Saint-Étienne, France |quote=...[C]hez un tailleur, un jeune apprenti coupeur de 14 ans donne ses premiers coups de ciseaux....[I]l fait son apprentissage chez le tailleur Louis Bompuis à Saint Étienne. [At a tailor's, a young, 14-year-old apprentice cutter gives his first cuts with scissors....He does his apprenticeship with tailor Louis Bompuis in Saint Étienne.]}}

{{stack|File:Dior denver art1.jpg (2019)]]}}

Cardin moved to Paris in 1945 after World War II. There, he studied architecture, briefly pursued an acting career,{{cite journal |last1=Obrist |first1=Hans Ulrich |title=The Legendary Pierre Cardin |journal=System |date=2014-07-01 |volume=2 |issue=4 |url=https://system-magazine.com/issues/issue-4/the-legendary-pierre-cardin |access-date=2025-03-06 |quote='...[A]s the end of the war arrived I returned to Paris...I wanted to become an actor'.}} and met Jean Cocteau, who employed him to do costumes for his 1946 film Beauty and the Beast/La Belle et la Bête.{{cite journal |last1=Obrist |first1=Hans Ulrich |title=The Legendary Pierre Cardin |journal=System |date=2014-07-01 |volume=2 |issue=4 |url=https://system-magazine.com/issues/issue-4/the-legendary-pierre-cardin |access-date=2025-03-06 |quote='...I met other personalities who introduced me to Jean Cocteau. I was employed by him and I did the costumes for La Belle et la Bête. That was the first money I earned...That was how I started in couture, via the theatre'.}} He worked with the fashion house of Paquin, then Elsa Schiaparelli, until Jean Cocteau and Christian Berard introduced him to Christian Dior and Dior made him head of his tailleure atelier in 1947,{{cite journal |title=Cardin First Struck Gold with Suit Made for Dior |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-08-27 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/07/archives/cardin-first-struck-gold-with-suit-made-for-dior.html |access-date=2023-04-05 |quote=Cocteau and Berard...introduced...Cardin to [Dior,] who was...preparing his first fashion collection...Cardin designed, cut, and made a coat and a suit. He showed them to Dior, who...enrolled him on his team.}} but he was denied work at Balenciaga.{{cite web|last=FashionUnited|date=2014-11-12 |title=Eternal futurist of fashion Pierre Cardin opens new museum at 92 |url= https://fashionunited.uk/news/culture/eternal-futurist-of-fashion-pierre-cardin-opens-new-museum-at-92/2014111214535 |access-date=2020-12-29 |website=fashionunited.uk|language=en-gb}} While at Dior, he contributed the popular Bar suit to Dior's inaugural 1947 "Corolle" collection, already displaying the deft tailoring that he would be known for in later years.{{cite journal |title=Dior: Fashion's Ten-Year Wonder Leaves Couture Leadership a Question |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-10-25 |page=41 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/10/25/archives/cardin-laroche-givenchy-called-likely-successors-dior-fashions.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=Pierre Cardin is Dior's protégé. He got his first big break in 1947, when he helped Dior design the sensational New Look. Since then he has been the only one of Dior's assistants to start a couture house of his own.}}{{cite journal |title=Cardin First Struck Gold with Suit Made for Dior |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-08-27 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/07/archives/cardin-first-struck-gold-with-suit-made-for-dior.html |access-date=2023-04-05 |quote=...Cardin...designed one of the most successful models...a suit called 'Bar,' which buyers the world over bought.}}

Cardin founded his own fashion house in 1950. His early designs fit well into the fashion world of the time,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=25 Years of Cardin: Couture to Wine |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-10-31 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/31/archives/25-years-of-cardin-couture-to-wine.html?searchResultPosition=16 |quote=In the beginning, he designed as everybody else did. There were the tight waists and rustling skirts of Christian Dior, the slight flamboyance of Jacques Fath, the barrel shapes of Balenciaga. The year was 1950, and Pierre Cardin had just opened his couture house....1951: Wasp waist and swishing skirt of black silk coat dress.}} especially his suits, which quickly attracted notice in Paris.{{cite journal |title=Cardin First Struck Gold with Suit Made for Dior |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-08-07 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/07/archives/cardin-first-struck-gold-with-suit-made-for-dior.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=By 1952,...[h]e concentrated on suits...[H]is name could be heard at social gatherings...as the best suitmaker in town.}} His career was launched when he designed about 30 of the costumes for a masquerade ball in Venice, hosted by Carlos de Beistegui in 1951. The same year, Andre Oliver joined Cardin as an assistant, eventually becoming associate designer and artistic director.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=New Men's Shop Puts Accent on Classics |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-10-04 |page=47 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/04/archives/new-mens-shop-puts-accent-on-classics.html?searchResultPosition=12 |quote=In 1951, at the age of 19, [André Oliver] became an assistant of Pierre Cardin in his couture salon on the Faubourg St. Honore in Paris. Through the years, he grew up to be Cardin's associate designer.}}{{cite journal |last1=Mendes |first1=Valerie D. |title=Obituary: Andre Oliver |journal=The Independent |date=1993-04-28 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-andre-oliver-1457922.html |access-date=2025-04-07 |quote=Andre Oliver joined Pierre Cardin's fashion house in 1951 and became Cardin's right-hand man, friend and fellow creator....As Artistic Director, [he] had a...crucial role in leading Cardin's...design team.}} Cardin inaugurated his haute couture output in 1953 with his first collection of women's clothing and became a member of the Chambre Syndicale, a French association of haute couture designers.{{cite web|url= https://agnautacouture.com/2015/07/26/pierre-cardin-fetish-for-the-bubble/ |title=Pierre Cardin, Fetish for the Bubble |website=Aganutacouture.com |date=26 July 2015 |access-date=31 December 2020}} The following year he opened his first boutique, Eve, and introduced the "bubble dress", which is a short-skirted, bubble-shaped dress made by bias-cutting over a stiffened base.{{Cite book|last1=Morana |first1=Virginie|url= http://archive.org/details/isbn_9780789303721|title=The Parisian woman's guide to style |last2=Morana|first2=Véronique |date=1999|publisher=Universe|isbn=978-0-7893-0372-1|location=New York, NY |pages=17}}{{cite book|last=O'Hara |first=Georgina |url= http://archive.org/details/encyclopaediaoff0000ohar |title=The encyclopaedia of fashion: from 1840 to the 1980s |date=1989 |publisher=Thames and Hudson |isbn=9780500275672 |location=London|pages=56}}

For spring of 1957, he presented a more extensive couture collection than he had before and it brought him widespread international attention for the first time.{{cite journal |title=Cardin First Struck Gold with Suit Made for Dior |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-08-07 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/07/archives/cardin-first-struck-gold-with-suit-made-for-dior.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=The great moment for M. Cardin came in 1957, when he decided to design a complete collection, including cocktail and evening dresses.}}{{cite journal |title=Portrait of a Designer |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-07-25 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/07/25/archives/portrait-of-a-designer-cardin-says-he-provides-keyboard-on-which.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...[A] full-scale collection...of 1957...brought him immediate recognition.}}{{cite journal |last1=Fenwick |first1=Mihri |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: LaRoche and Cardin Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-02-05 |page=F20 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/02/05/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-laroche-and-cardin-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...Pierre Cardin...has just shown his best collection so far and it puts him unquestionably into the front rank.}} The collection focused on two dress silhouettes, a long, lean, unwaisted chemise dress{{cite journal |last1=Fenwick |first1=Mihri |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: LaRoche and Cardin Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-02-05 |page=F20 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/02/05/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-laroche-and-cardin-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Dresses are shown in two different silhouettes. The first is straight, square necked and beltless, gently following the line of the body.}} and one that featured what he called a "Navette" line, a high waist with fullness over the hips tapering down to a drawn-in knee.{{cite journal |last1=Fenwick |first1=Mihri |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: LaRoche and Cardin Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-02-05 |page=F20 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/02/05/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-laroche-and-cardin-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=In practically every other dress,...the 'Navette' look appears in the skirts, which are again tucked, gathered or held by unattached pleats at the waist from which point they swell out over the hips and then are cut in around the knees.}} A navette is a weaving shuttle, so the skirts were vaguely spindle-shaped. Observers compared the skirt shape to an egg standing on its narrow end or to an amphora.{{cite journal |last1=Fenwick |first1=Mihri |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: LaRoche and Cardin Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-02-05 |page=F20 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/02/05/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-laroche-and-cardin-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Cardin's 'Navette' [shuttle, as in weaving shuttle, tapering at both ends like a spindle, fusiform] line is that of a Greek amphora, or jar with a large egg-shaped body, cylindrical neck and two handles.}} Skirts of similar form were a rising trend among designers in France, Italy, and Spain. The Navette line also extended to coats.{{cite journal |last1=Fenwick |first1=Mihri |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: LaRoche and Cardin Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-02-05 |page=F20 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/02/05/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-laroche-and-cardin-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=On coats, the look is achieved by tucks or gathers at the shoulder line. The fullness is caught in at the hem.}} His tailoring ability was expressed in three different suit styles, all high-waisted.{{cite journal |last1=Fenwick |first1=Mihri |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: LaRoche and Cardin Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-02-05 |page=F20 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/02/05/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-laroche-and-cardin-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Town suits appear in three variations – one, short jackets with round, buttoned collars, belted at the waist; two, bolero jackets with round or square necklines; longer double-breasted jackets with seven-eighths sleeves set low. These are worn with high-waisted, belted skirts.}} In February of that year, just after the collection debuted, Christian Dior suggested publicly that Cardin could easily become French couture's leading light,{{cite journal |title=Dior: Fashion's Ten-Year Wonder Leaves Couture Leadership a Question |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-10-25 |page=41 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/10/25/archives/cardin-laroche-givenchy-called-likely-successors-dior-fashions.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=Dior was delighted at [Cardin's] success....Last February, at Dior's tenth anniversary dinner, Dior embraced Cardin and said: 'Paris will always be the center of haute couture because there will always be young, new talent ready to take up the torch'.}}{{cite journal |title=Portrait of a Designer |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-07-25 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/07/25/archives/portrait-of-a-designer-cardin-says-he-provides-keyboard-on-which.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote= 'Take up the torch,' Dior said publicly. 'It can be yours'.}} and after Dior's death that October, the fashion press considered Cardin to be one of three young designers who might rise to a position equivalent to Dior's.{{cite journal |title=Dior: Fashion's Ten-Year Wonder Leaves Couture Leadership a Question |journal=The New York Times |date=1957-10-25 |page=41 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/10/25/archives/cardin-laroche-givenchy-called-likely-successors-dior-fashions.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=Already speculation has begun as to who might be Dior's successor. The three youngest and most promising designers in Paris today are Hubert de Givenchy, Guy Laroche and Pierre Cardin, all in their thirties.}}{{cite journal |title=Portrait of a Designer |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-07-25 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/07/25/archives/portrait-of-a-designer-cardin-says-he-provides-keyboard-on-which.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=For some time thereafter there was a rumor...that the...designer...would succeed to what had become the international throne of fashion.}}

Also in 1957, he opened his Adam boutique for men.{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=248 |chapter=1957 |quote=In Paris...Pierre Cardin launched his 'Adam' boutique...}} By that time, alone among Paris couturiers, he had already established a name for himself in menswear,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=25 Years of Cardin: Couture to Wine |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-10-31 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/31/archives/25-years-of-cardin-couture-to-wine.html?searchResultPosition=16 |quote=He was the first of the couture designers in Paris to design men's clothes...}} particularly for a line of small, squared-off bowties in unusual fabrics.{{cite journal |title=Cardin First Struck Gold with Suit Made for Dior |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-08-07 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/07/archives/cardin-first-struck-gold-with-suit-made-for-dior.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=Impatient over the standstill in men's fashions, he resolved to do something about...the necktie. His square-ended bowtie, made in knobbly tweed, doeskin or exotic brocades, suddenly became a rage in Paris. Amusing sweaters, new shirt cuffs and woven silk waistcoats also were a huge success.}} His entry into the field paralleled the beginnings of a renaissance in creative menswear occurring in the UK, which would inspire Cardin during the following decade.

Cardin was the first couturier to turn to Japan as a high fashion market when he travelled there in 1957,{{cite web|last=Steinberg |first=Marty |date=29 December 2020 |title=Pierre Cardin, ground-breaking fashion designer and master marketer, dies at 98|url= https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/29/pierre-cardin-ground-breaking-fashion-designer-dies.html |publisher=CNBC |access-date=9 April 2021}} and it was in Japan that he would discover one of his favorite models and muses, Hiroko Matsumoto, known professionally as Hiroko, whom the public would associate with Cardin through much of the 1960s.{{cite magazine |title=Five Beauties Steal Style Show in Paris |magazine=Life |date=1960-09-12 |volume=49 |issue=11 |pages=92, 94 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EE8EAAAAMBAJ&dq=pierre+cardin&pg=PA92 |quote=...Hiroko Matsumoto, 24,...was seen by...Pierre Cardin on a trip to Tokyo. Taken by her fragility and grace, Cardin says, 'She incarnates purity as I have never seen it in anyone.'...Hiroko wore 18 of [the autumn 1960 Cardin] show's most successful numbers...}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Paris Forecast: A Natural, Easy-Going Silhouette |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-07-24 |page=12 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/07/24/archives/paris-forecast-a-natural-easygoing-silhouette.html?searchResultPosition=15 |quote=Cardin...has never faltered in his admiration for Hiroko, his bird‐boned Japanese mannequin...}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Gamin-Like Girls Replace Great Beauties as Models for Couture |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-11-19 |page=45 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/11/19/archives/gaminlike-girls-replace-grea-t-beauties-as-models-for-couture.html?searchResultPosition=26 |quote=Probably the two most memorable models in Paris are Pierre Cardin's tiny Japanese asset named Hiroko and André Courrèges's melancholy‐looking Monique...Both are unusual, aloof and beautiful.}}

After his breakthrough 1957 couture collections, Cardin's womenswear shows would be regularly covered in the world's fashion press. He continued to be recognized as a top tailor,{{cite journal |title=Thumbnail Biographies of Four Paris Designers |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-08-27 |page=25 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/27/archives/thumbnail-biographies-of-four-paris-designers.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=He...is a truly superb tailor. Everything that comes from M. Cardin's design room has a completely thought-out and accomplished look to it.}} and his late 1950s collections were noted for their accomplished presentations of a number of trends of the time:{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Patou, Cardin, Heim Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1959-01-27 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/01/27/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-cardin-patou-heim-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=If all this description has a familiar ring, it is certainly not to Cardin's discredit....All...very good designers were thinking along the same lines.}} waistless dresses, geometric seaming, large collars, large buttons, shoulder interest, knee-length skirts, large tall hats, and bouffant hairstyles.{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Lanvin-Castillo, Patou, Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-07-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/29/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-lanvincastillo-patou-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...carefully balanced, elaborate and puffed out wigs...}} These styles were accepted in Europe but considered avant-garde in the US,{{cite journal |title=Thumbnail Biographies of Four Paris Designers |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-08-27 |page=25 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/27/archives/thumbnail-biographies-of-four-paris-designers.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=...[H]e is now of the avant-garde school of design – bucket hats, big collars, wide shoulders, figure-concealing cuts and short skirts.}} where Americans preferred the kind of figure-revealing forms established by Dior in 1947 and rejected the new shapes out of Europe.{{cite journal |last1=Ashe |first1=Agnes |title=Shy Cardin Backs Trend to Chemise |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-09-12 |page=23 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/09/12/archives/shy-cardin-backs-trend-to-chemise.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=One of the chemise-pushing dictators that American men have been railing against arrived from Paris yesterday...Pierre Cardin...was saddened to hear that American men had denounced the chemise....[H]e said,...'After all, a woman loves a mink coat. It does not show her shape...' }}

Cardin also began to display at this time design elements that would become characteristic of his work for years to come. His love of pleats,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=25 Years of Cardin: Couture to Wine |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-10-31 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/31/archives/25-years-of-cardin-couture-to-wine.html?searchResultPosition=16 |quote=As the decade of the fifties progressed, he began showing his innovative touches: an entirely pleated coat, for example...}} cowl necklines,{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Patou, Cardin, Heim Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1959-01-27 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/01/27/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-cardin-patou-heim-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...necklines...emphasized by cowl collars...}} and batwing sleeves,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Youthful Styles are the Highlight of a Busy Day in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-07-27 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/07/27/archives/cardins-youthful-styles-are-the-highlight-of-a-busy-day-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...deep batwing sleeve, a design Cardin has always believed in...}} for instance, already evident in the late fifties, would still be notable in his output in the 1980s. Large, upturned bowl hats set on the back of the head were also favored by him in these years and would continue to be seen in his collections into the mid-1960s.{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=251 |chapter=1958 |quote=The huge rolled-back straw hat is almost Cardin's signature.}}

In 1958, he showed knee-length puffball skirts,{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |pages=251, 252 |chapter=1958 |quote=The other notable [spring] silhouette in Paris was Pierre Cardin's 'puff-ball' skirt....Pierre Cardin's short, puff-ball line in black-and-white checked wool.}} coats with similar turned-under hems,{{cite magazine |title=Other Paris Successes |magazine=Life |date=1958-03-03 |volume=44 |issue=9 |page=40 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVYEAAAAMBAJ&dq=pierre+cardin&pg=PA40 |access-date=2024-12-01 |quote=Harem coat, made in fuzzy mohair by...Pierre Cardin, brought to streetwear the puffed hemline currently very popular for evening dresses.}} and bouffant wig hats consisting of silk flowers for the spring,{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=251 |chapter=1958 |quote=Wig-like hat of bright red roses.}} and, for the fall, large, innovative collar treatments,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Lanvin-Castillo, Patou, Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-07-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/29/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-lanvincastillo-patou-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...[O]versized collars...dominated most of Cardin's clothes....Collars were in everlasting variety – sometimes fluted and falling off the shoulders like little capes; other times, they darted and puffed. Some, shaped rather like brioche, rose and tickled the nose.}}{{cite book |last1=Parnis |first1=Mollie |title=1959 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1958 |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. |page=248 |chapter=Fashion and Dress |quote=Green wool suit with wide [cuff] collar and large buttons. From the 1958 Fall and Winter collection of Pierre Cardin.}} high waists,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Lanvin-Castillo, Patou, Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-07-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/29/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-lanvincastillo-patou-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...[W]aists were high and interest centered around the top of the body in his masterful coats and suits...}} bouffant millinery,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Lanvin-Castillo, Patou, Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-07-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/29/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-lanvincastillo-patou-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=....[H]uge globe-shaped hats balanced...emphatic shoulder interest.}} and slim, somewhat Directoire eveningwear,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Lanvin-Castillo Patou, Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-07-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/29/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-lanvincastillo-patou-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...Cardin's evening clothes adhered more to the closer-fitted, high-waisted Empire silhouette.}} all contributing to what he called a mushroom silhouette.{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Lanvin-Castillo, Patou, Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1958-07-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1958/07/29/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-lanvincastillo-patou-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=The silhouette was described by M. Cardin as a mushroom.}} His 1959 work focused on a lowered and extended shoulderline achieved via tucked sleeves;{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=257 |chapter=1959 |quote=The most exciting suit this spring came from Cardin and featured tucked sleeves attached to an extended shoulderline....Cardin's creamy wicker-weave wool suit features his new tucked sleeves and extended shoulderline.}} continued collar interest;{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Patou, Cardin, Heim Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1959-01-27 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/01/27/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-cardin-patou-heim-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...[Shift dresses] were...surmounted by compellingly wide loops of collars that Cardin called 'hoops'.}} dresses that were either chemises or softly bloused about a belted waist;{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Patou, Cardin, Heim Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1959-01-27 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/01/27/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-cardin-patou-heim-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Cardin's dresses were either belted at the waist, blousing casually above and below it, or they were easy-fitting, sleeveless sh[i]fts.}} puff-hemmed balloon skirts for evening{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Patou, Cardin, Heim Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1959-01-27 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/01/27/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-cardin-patou-heim-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Evening dresses had skirts like modified balloons, curving up a bit in front and dipping into a train in back.}} somewhat similar to Balenciaga's of 1950;{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=226 |chapter=1950 |quote=Balenciaga's sculptural formal designs for evening dresses... – stiff paper taffetas blown up and rolled under into huge pumpkin skirts tipped up in the front}} and continued large hats{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Fashion Trends Abroad, Paris: Patou, Cardin, Heim Collections |journal=The New York Times |date=1959-01-27 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/01/27/archives/fashion-trends-abroad-paris-cardin-patou-heim-collections.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Hats...were either big, upside-down bowls of white organdy or brilliantly shaded, mammoth-sized sombreros.}} and bouffant hairdos.

He also presented his first women's ready-to-wear collection in 1959.{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=258 |chapter=1959 |quote=...Cardin showed his first prêt-á-porter collection.}}

In early 1960, Cardin showed a full menswear line for the first time.{{cite journal |last1=Barry |first1=Joseph |title=Cardin Discusses – 'La Mode Masculine' |journal=The New York Times |date=1968-04-21 |page=84 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/21/archives/cardin-discusses-la-mode-masculine.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote= 'Often it was male fashion that influenced women's. Yes, it happened in the 1920's, ceased in the 1930's and started again – with my men's line – in 1960. Everything began with that change. Now la mode masculine is discussed regularly in fashion magazines....That is what I did for the first time: present male styles as if they were a fashion – as a line'.}} This 1960 menswear collection attracted international attention with its narrow "Cylinder" silhouette (called by some a "cigarette" shape),{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=For Today's Designers, Fashion Isn't Enough |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-10-26 |page=48 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/26/archives/for-todays-designers-fashion-isnt-enough.html?searchResultPosition=26 |quote=...[W]hen he began doing suits in the early 1960's he practically launched the menswear fashion revolution. His first designs, known in Paris as the 'cigarette' line, were long and skinny and had Edwardian overtones.}} natural shoulders, center-vented suit jackets, foulard shirts, prominent belts, and, above all, high-buttoning, collarless suits, famously copied by the Beatles' tailor three years later.

Cardin's women's collections in the early 1960s often concentrated on more flowing lines than previously,{{cite journal |last1=Molli |first1=Jeanne |title=Paris Show Opens with Cardin Styles |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-01-30 |page=F11 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/01/30/archives/paris-show-opens-with-cardin-styles-suits-and-evening-clothes-are.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=The hard tailored look has never been a favorite with Cardin, and his new suits were particularly casual and subtle.}} lines that were sometimes said to be influenced by the 1930s.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Talk on Couture Shows Draws Stylish Audience |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-08-11 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/11/archives/talk-on-couture-shows-draws-stylish-audience.html?searchResultPosition=18 |quote=...[Fashion columnist William J.] Cunningham called Pierre Cardin 'creative and clever,' described his collection as embodying 'the flavor of the nineteen-thirties but the spirit of 1964'...}} To his favorite pleats,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Show Offers Nostalgia, Cappucci's Fun |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-02-01 |page=15 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/01/archives/cardins-show-offers-nostalgia-capuccis-fun.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=Pleats gave skirts motion.}}{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=265 |chapter=1961 |quote=Cardin's white Arabian crepe pleated dress.}}{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=280 |chapter=1964 |quote=Cardin fills the plunging neckline of his jade-green crepe dress with a veil of chiffon over the bodice of paper-fan pleats. The naked back is flaunted.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Couture Copies in Debut Here |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-03-06 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/06/archives/couture-copies-in-debut-here.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=Pierre Cardin's navy crepe ensemble has full, pleated white sleeves, a bow at neck.}} batwing sleeves,{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Cardin Lowers Hemlins, Shows a New Silhouette |journal=The New York Times |date=1962-07-24 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1962/07/24/archives/cardin-lowers-hemline-shows-a-new-silhouette.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Dresses were slim except for a series of bias-cut, blousy dresses with deep bat-wing sleeves.}}{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Youthful Styles are the Highlight of a Busy Day in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-07-27 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/07/27/archives/cardins-youthful-styles-are-the-highlight-of-a-busy-day-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=The deep batwing sleeve...wended its way in and out of the collection. The sleeve almost transformed several coats into capes.}} cowl necklines,{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Cardin Lowers Hemlins, Shows a New Silhouette |journal=The New York Times |date=1962-07-24 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1962/07/24/archives/cardin-lowers-hemline-shows-a-new-silhouette.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Long, slender evening gowns had daringly deep cowl necklines...}} and bowl hats{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Soft Dress Takes Over Spotlight at Chanel and Cardin Shows |journal=The New York Times |date=1965-01-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/01/30/archives/soft-dress-takes-over-spotlight-at-chanel-and-cardin-shows.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Hats looked like salad bowls stuck on the back of the head.}} he added side closures,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Beautiful Styles Open Showings in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-07-25 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/07/25/archives/cardins-beautiful-styles-open-showings-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=Suits were quite curvaceous with Cardin's favorite side closing.}}{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Paris Designers Play the Same Theme |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-08-01 |page=14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/01/archives/paris-designers-play-the-same-theme-fuller-skirts-and-pants-for-day.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=...[H]is wrap‐coats...always close way over on one side of the body.}} open backs,{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Cardin Lowers Hemlins, Shows a New Silhouette |journal=The New York Times |date=1962-07-24 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1962/07/24/archives/cardin-lowers-hemline-shows-a-new-silhouette.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...[D]aringly deep cowl necklines...dipped to expose the back right to the waistline.}}{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=279 |chapter=1964 |quote=...Courrèges and Cardin chose the back as a sensual focal point of their dresses.}} deep decolletage,{{cite journal |last1=Molli |first1=Jeanne |title=Paris Show Opens with Cardin Styles |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-01-30 |page=F11 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/01/30/archives/paris-show-opens-with-cardin-styles-suits-and-evening-clothes-are.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=The vertical line of the loose Cardin tunic, worn with a narrow skirt, was further emphasized by plunging slit necklines....A silk gardenia...often was placed at the low decolletage.}}{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Show Offers Nostalgia, Cappucci's Fun |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-02-01 |page=15 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/01/archives/cardins-show-offers-nostalgia-capuccis-fun.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=...[N]arrow coats, suits and dresses had fronts slashed to the waist with filled‐in U or V necklines. Low lapels or roll‐away wide collars often outlined the open fronts....The audience...applauded wildly for a beaded cocktail dress slashed nearly to the hem....The back was bare and the front, filled in with flesh-colored veiling, looked even barer.}} capelet collars, scarf tops,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Show Offers Nostalgia, Cappucci's Fun |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-02-01 |page=15 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/01/archives/cardins-show-offers-nostalgia-capuccis-fun.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=For evening, some of the best dresses had scarf tops. These were bloused in the front to end in capelet collars over bare backs.}} floating panels,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Beautiful Styles Open Showings in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-07-25 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/07/25/archives/cardins-beautiful-styles-open-showings-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=Many...suits...had long scarves attached to one shoulder, which were then tossed nonchalantly around the neck or over the arm.}}{{cite journal |last1=Molli |first1=Jeanne |title=Paris Show Opens with Cardin Styles |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-01-30 |page=F11 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/01/30/archives/paris-show-opens-with-cardin-styles-suits-and-evening-clothes-are.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Many afternoon and evening clothes had back drapes that dropped down as panels when the proper switch was pulled.}} bias cuts,{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Paris Collections: Marc Bohan and Pierre Cardin Among Top Designers |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-02-28 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/02/28/archives/paris-collections-marc-bohan-and-pierre-cardin-among-top-designers.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Cardin's bias cut, 'spiral' dress in black and white polka dot crêpe.}}{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Soft Dress Takes Over Spotlight at Chanel and Cardin Shows |journal=The New York Times |date=1965-01-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/01/30/archives/soft-dress-takes-over-spotlight-at-chanel-and-cardin-shows.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...[M]oving skirts had a high priority. Bias-cut flounces competed with narrow, fan-shaped pleats.}} and extensive chiffon.{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Paris Collections: Marc Bohan and Pierre Cardin Among Top Designers |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-02-28 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/02/28/archives/paris-collections-marc-bohan-and-pierre-cardin-among-top-designers.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Cardin's 'butterfly' afternoon [cage over-]dress of pastel trellis-patterned chiffon. Straight shift [underdress] is sashed at the hip....Cardin's extravagant, flowing print chiffon dinner gown, another example of his bias cut.}}{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Beautiful Styles Open Showings in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-07-25 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/07/25/archives/cardins-beautiful-styles-open-showings-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=...[C]hiffon dresses that were tinted the colors of the rainbow...all left one shoulder bare.}}{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Soft Dress Takes Over Spotlight at Chanel and Cardin Shows |journal=The New York Times |date=1965-01-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/01/30/archives/soft-dress-takes-over-spotlight-at-chanel-and-cardin-shows.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...blurry chiffon gowns worn by a group of models who trotted out and twirled at the same time. It is an old trick of Cardin's, but it worked well today.}}{{cite journal |last1=Molli |first1=Jeanne |title=Paris Show Opens with Cardin Styles |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-01-30 |page=F11 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/01/30/archives/paris-show-opens-with-cardin-styles-suits-and-evening-clothes-are.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=For evening, hats were made of layers of chiffon, swirled like cones of whipped cream.}} In the earliest sixties, he showed close-fitting, helmet-like cloche hats that looked like they were straight out of the late 1920s or early 1930s.{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=263 |chapter=1960 |quote=Narrow-sided, wrapped coats with snug fur collars and head-hugging cloches from Cardin were the autumn sensation.}}{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Beautiful Styles Open Showings in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-07-25 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/07/25/archives/cardins-beautiful-styles-open-showings-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=Collarless suits had matching, head-hugging helmets.}} In 1961, he showed sou'wester hats with almost no front rim and a back rim so exaggerated it resembled a bill. His hems stayed mostly at the knee for daywear but were lengthened by several inches for fall of 1962, giving an even more thirties-like appearance.{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Cardin Lowers Hemlins, Shows a New Silhouette |journal=The New York Times |date=1962-07-24 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1962/07/24/archives/cardin-lowers-hemline-shows-a-new-silhouette.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Pierre Cardin has dropped the hemline two to four inches below the knee, flared the skirt, narrowed the shoulders and sleeves and created a new silhouette....His clothes were fluid and stripped of detail....[H]e is one designer who can take inspiration from the past and create modern fashion rather than period costumes. Although most of his clothes must have been inspired by fashions of the Nineteen Thirties, they reflected only the faintest echo of that influence.}} This fluid thirties-ish look would extend into 1965 with handkerchief hems and scalloped skirts.{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Show Offers Nostalgia, Cappucci's Fun |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-02-01 |page=15 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/01/archives/cardins-show-offers-nostalgia-capuccis-fun.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=The Cardin collection was a revival of the nineteen‐thirties....The clothes were soft, as Cardin's always are, but this time they clung, they drooped, they curved, they bloused. Hems were scalloped or hung in handkerchief points....}}

Though Cardin's womenswear of the early sixties hadn't reached the Dior levels of prestige predicted for him in the late fifties,{{cite journal |title=Portrait of a Designer |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-07-25 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/07/25/archives/portrait-of-a-designer-cardin-says-he-provides-keyboard-on-which.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=M. Cardin did not succeed Dior and...despite what has been assessed as great talent, especially in his tailoring of suits and his choice of colors, he has still to win many of the top buyers.}} his work continued to be well received in Europe. In the US, however, his women's clothes were still considered overly avant-garde and sales remained low.{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=Paris Collections: Marc Bohan and Pierre Cardin Among Top Designers |journal=The New York Times |date=1961-02-28 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/02/28/archives/paris-collections-marc-bohan-and-pierre-cardin-among-top-designers.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Pierre Cardin is one of Paris'[s] most avant-garde couturiers....[H]is styles are sometimes labeled 'too advanced,' often 'unwearable'.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Talk on Couture Shows Draws Stylish Audience |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-08-11 |page=28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/11/archives/talk-on-couture-shows-draws-stylish-audience.html?searchResultPosition=18 |quote=...[Fashion columnist William J.] Cunningham...said that although Cardin's designs were influential in Europe, they did not win favor with American buyers or press representatives.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Couture Copies in Debut Here |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-03-06 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/06/archives/couture-copies-in-debut-here.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=Macy's was the only store to buy models at Cardin...}}

Cardin traveled to the Soviet Union for the first time in 1963, two years after the country had first sent cosmonauts into orbit and the year Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to enter outer space. Cardin was directly inspired by seeing Tereshkova in her cosmonaut jumpsuit and helmet and would soon begin introducing into his work elements of Space Age styles.{{cite journal |last1=Kuprina |first1=Nadya |title=How Pierre Cardin Fell in Love with Soviet Russia |journal=Russia Beyond |date=2020-12-30 |url=https://www.rbth.com/arts/333239-pierre-cardin-ussr-russia |access-date=2025-06-06 |quote=His first trip was in...1963, as part of a delegation of cultural workers....He openly admitted that his revolutionary female outfits resembling spacesuits were conceived in his mind from photographs of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space. His Space collection, inspired by Yuri Gagarin’s flight, became emblematic of his work and the development of 1960s fashion as a whole.}}

Possible first signs of Space Age influence appeared in fall of 1963, when Cardin joined other designers in showing a more youthful silhouette consisting at base of hip-length blouson-like tops/jackets over narrow skirts hitting at the top of the knee worn with muffled collars, helmet-like or hood-like hats and caps, tights, and flat boots,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Paris Designers Favor Lean and Natural Look |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-08-05 |page=F39 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/08/05/archives/paris-designers-favor-lean-and-natural-look-sportswear-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=30 |quote=...[T]he look of the new clothes is lean and natural...Necks are muffled...or are emphasized by upturned collars, cowls, or turtlenecks...Long-sleeved tunics and pullovers abound....Skirts are...short...Legs are covered by...boots and heavy stockings...}} with Cardin's boots reaching the knee.{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Youthful Styles are the Highlight of a Busy Day in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-07-27 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/07/27/archives/cardins-youthful-styles-are-the-highlight-of-a-busy-day-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=His coats and suits were snappy and young...Collars up and with high kid boots as snug as gloves...Jackets pulled down like long sweaters over the hips. Hats were either caps or boaters..... Along with the rest of Paris, Cardin muffled the neck. There were out and out turtlenecks, soft and crushy, or cadet collars, stiff and hard.}} It was in this collection that he would first present the geometric cutouts that would become widespread by 1966. Cardin's 1963 cutouts were applied to tunics worn over slim dresses.{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=280 |chapter=1963 |quote=From Paris,...Cardin's cut-out smocks baring the skin or the close-fitting dress beneath.}}{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Cardin's Youthful Styles are the Highlight of a Busy Day in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1963-07-27 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/07/27/archives/cardins-youthful-styles-are-the-highlight-of-a-busy-day-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=Cardin also played with a cut-out theme. A dress in tangerine orange showed through the round holes of a perforated gray tunic.}}

In 1964, he showed low-slung waists and tights that matched upper garments,{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Cardin Here for Busy Week |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-05-10 |page=40 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/05/10/archives/cardin-here-for-busy-week.html?searchResultPosition=13 |quote=Pierre Cardin...thought up...short skirts and matching stockings two years ago [1964]...}} including patterned tights matching patterned tops,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Paris Designers Play the Same Theme |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-08-01 |page=14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/01/archives/paris-designers-play-the-same-theme-fuller-skirts-and-pants-for-day.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Some of his brightest ideas included printed flowery wool blouses and stockings that matched each other down to the last stem and leaf. He had...the only low‐waisted suits to be seen in Paris. They had hip belts ribboned through the jackets. Coats with long torsos had low, flounced hems.}} a characteristic trend of the mid-sixties,{{cite book |last1=Heathcote |first1=Phyllis W. |title=1966 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1965 |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. |pages=296 |chapter=Fashion and Dress |quote=...[L]eotards and...stockings had come on the market toward the close of 1964...[T]he impression was of an all-in-one undergarment worn...with a short skirt or pinafore dress on top. The idea of the outer or top garment being accessory to the basic undergarment...suggested an interesting new approach to dress and fashion formulas.}} and he began adding simple, top-of-the-knee A-line shift dresses emblazoned with large geometric shapes such as targets,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=25 Years of Cardin: Couture to Wine |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-10-31 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/31/archives/25-years-of-cardin-couture-to-wine.html?searchResultPosition=16 |quote=1964: Chemise with bullseye appliqué.}} as Paris picked up on London's Mod boutique culture of the early 1960s.{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=240 |chapter=1957-1967 |quote=Kiki Byrne presented perfect geometric lines as early as 1960 in her King's Road boutique, Glass and Black. Her impeccably designed, well-made clothes were the strongest London fashion statement between 1960 and 1963. Sally Tuffin and Marion Foale graduated from Janey Ironside's [Royal College of Art design] course in 1960 and set up a workroom off Carnaby Street...Their shift dresses were printed with modern American art, pop art, targets, triangles and zigzags of primary colours, and the silhouette became less important than the pattern on it.}}

Perhaps surprisingly for a designer considered avant-garde, Cardin resisted and even denounced pants for women as they rose in popularity in the mid-sixties after André Courrèges promoted them for everyday wear in 1964,{{cite journal |last1=Peterson |first1=Patricia |title=Paris Designers Play the Same Theme |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-08-01 |page=14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/01/archives/paris-designers-play-the-same-theme-fuller-skirts-and-pants-for-day.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Pierre Cardin...is one of the rare designers anywhere who does not share the Franco‐American passion for pants. They did not cut any ice in his collection today.}} a stance Cardin would maintain until 1968.{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Cardin Here for Busy Week |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-05-10 |page=40 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/05/10/archives/cardin-here-for-busy-week.html?searchResultPosition=13 |quote=Pierre Cardin...added his condemnation of women in pants except for sport.}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Pierre Cardin...refuses to design pants of any kind.}}

Cardin launched a men's ready-to-wear line in 1964 that included numerous turtlenecks, a garment that would become a mainstay of men's fashion during the decade. By 1965, his men's suits had evolved into a more shaped, fitted style, usually three-piece, sometimes double-breasted, featuring longer jackets with marked waists, deeper vents, and wider lapels on both jackets and vests; and slim pants with a slight flare below the knee.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=U.S. and Britain Contribute to Frenchmen's New Look |journal=The New York Times |date=1965-10-29 |page=46 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/10/29/archives/us-and-britain-contribute-to-frenchmens-new-look.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=..[H]is new silhouette...means a longer jacket with natural shoulders and deeply slashed vents...and slim trousers, but not pipestems, that give the illusion of being slightly wider beneath the knee than above it. Real Cardinists always wear vests (some with lapels)...}}{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marilyn |title=Cardin Label Going on U.S.-Made Suits |journal=The New York Times |date=1968-09-03 |page=38 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/09/03/archives/cardin-label-going-on-usmade-suits.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...[H]e revived...the double-breasted style...three years ago [1965]...}} Ties were wider. Shirts were colored or striped and had more prominent collars. Footwear was often an ankle-high boot style that came to be associated with Cardin, designed to maintain a clean line while concealing the socks.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=U.S. and Britain Contribute to Frenchmen's New Look |journal=The New York Times |date=1965-10-29 |page=46 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/10/29/archives/us-and-britain-contribute-to-frenchmens-new-look.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...wide-collared colored shirts, and Cardin boots or very soft shoes.}} This silhouette was inspired by the Mod menswear trends of the UK.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Men's Wear Goes to New Lengths |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-03-23 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/03/23/archives/cardin-mens-wear-goes-to-new-length.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Cardin...has kept his British-inspired silhouette.}}

By 1966, Cardin favored an even closer fit for his menswear; slightly wider, more squared shoulders on longer jackets; two-piece or three-piece suits, the vests now sans lapels; a single inverted pleat for jackets instead of vents; higher shirt collars; larger tie knots on even wider ties; and flared pants.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Men's Wear Goes to New Lengths |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-03-23 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/03/23/archives/cardin-mens-wear-goes-to-new-length.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote= This means wide lapels...Cardin now prefers a deep inverted pleat in the back of the jacket....His jackets seem tighter than ever...Shoulders look wider but are still sharply squared. He now likes vests without lapels....Cardin's shirt collars rise almost to the Adam's apple. Wide ties, now the rage here, have Windsor knots.}} Turtlenecks were now presented even for evening, a trend that would become characteristic of the second half of the decade.{{cite journal |last1=Barry |first1=Joseph |title=Cardin Discusses – "La Mode Masculine" |journal=The New York Times |date=1968-04-21 |page=84 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/21/archives/cardin-discusses-la-mode-masculine.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote= 'I launched the first turtleneck sweater for evening wear two years ago [1966], at least'.}} More casual clothes were also slim, even tight, and featured turtlenecks, jackets with zippers closing fronts and pockets, trousers with stripes along the outer seam, and prominent belts,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Chanel and Cardin Share Spotlight in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-07-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/07/30/archives/chanel-and-cardin-share-spotlight-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=14 |quote=Menswear shown today included jersey suits cut in the long, lean, small-waisted silhouette that Cardin likes; long, ribbed sweaters with big, buckled belts; ankle high boots; gray flannel trousers with a brown stripe running down the side; sweaters with asymmetrical zippers; sporty jackets and narrow trousers. He also showed a black leather Hans Brinker cap with a black leather jacket that bristled with big zippers.}} with summer clothes more colorful and including striped shirts worn open enough to expose the chest and flared pants with colorful side stripes.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Men's Wear Goes to New Lengths |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-03-23 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/03/23/archives/cardin-mens-wear-goes-to-new-length.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=The summer look...means white pants with stripes down their sides, matching striped, wide belts and colored shirts unbuttoned to show most of the chest....The shirts were in purple, orange and mauve, with the stripes picking up the same colors.}} All of this became very influential and popular, including in the US.

Cardin resigned from the Chambre Syndicale in 1966 and began showing his collections in his own venue. He also designed uniforms for Pakistan International Airlines, which were introduced from 1966 to 1971 and became an instant hit.{{cite news|url= http://archives.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/archive/030504/dmag7.htm |title=Pierre Cardin comes to PIA |journal=Dawn Magazine |first=Omar |last=Kureishi |date=4 May 2003 |access-date=26 March 2012}}

Cardin had entered his Space Age phase by 1966, as had much of the rest of the fashion world following the launch of the Soviet Union's space program, André Courrèges's landmark 1964 and '65 collections, and the widespread influence of Britain's Mod culture.{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=256 |chapter=1960-1969: The Revolutionary Sixties |quote=In the middle sixties Vogue ran headlines like, 'The World Suddenly Wants to Copy the Way We Look. In New York it's the London Look, In Paris it's Le Style Anglais....English girls now....can enjoy watching others copy them'.}}{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Teen-Agers Put Mods at the Top of Fashion Poll |journal=The New York Times |date=1965-06-03 |page=38 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1965/06/03/archives/teenagers-put-mods-at-the-top-of-fashion-poll.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=For the American teen-ager, fashion begins with the British Mods [and] Courrèges looms high on the horizon...These are some of the results of a survey conducted by Seventeen magazine among girls 16 to 18 years old...Although this age group is not particularly designer-conscious, the names of Mary Quant (sometimes designated the mother of the Mod movement) and Jane & Jane are familiar and respected because of the importance of the British Mods to girls of high school age...}} His menswear collections now also included a Cosmonaut or Cosmocorps line characterized by jumpsuits, hip-belted tunics, and tights-like or flared trousers, all with prominent, often ring-pulled zippers and ultra-modern boots that sometimes rose to the knee.{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Maxi? To Cardin, C'est Bon |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-10-14 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/10/14/archives/maxi-to-cardin-cest-bon.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote='[Cardin] is the space couturier,' said Mrs. [Nicole] Alphand, referring to the cosmonaut style introduced for men and women three years ago [1966].}}{{cite journal |last1=Barry |first1=Joseph |title=Cardin Discusses – 'La Mode Masculine' |journal=The New York Times |date=1968-04-21 |page=84 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/21/archives/cardin-discusses-la-mode-masculine.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=...'I propose the "Cosmocorps",' [says Cardin]...The male models in 'Cosmocorps'...reminded some of frogmen, others of miners and skindivers, though outerspacemen seems to be what Cardin may have had in mind.}}

His Space Age-period womenswear of 1966 featured mini lengths,{{cite book |last1=Hasson |first1=Rochelle |title=The 1967 World Book Year Book: A Review of the Events of 1966 |publisher=Field Enterprises Educational Corporation |page=338 |chapter=Fashion |quote=Paris designers Yves St. Laurent and Cardin not only raised hems to above the knees but also uplifted entire silhouettes of dresses for styles with high cuts, narrow shoulders, and gliding but controlled cone shapes.}} extensive cutouts, geometric necklines, rolled hems and collars, and cutaway shoulders.{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=244 |chapter=1957-1967 |quote=Pierre Cardin experimented with geometric clothes in his Eve boutique, perfecting his fluid line and acidic colors by the mid-sixties...}} He was the leading advocate of cutouts{{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=Collier's 1967 Yearbook Covering the Year 1966 |publisher=Crowell Collier and MacMillan, Inc. |page=210 |chapter=Fashion |quote=Led by Paris designer Pierre Cardin, designers began cutting holes everywhere.}} and prominent zippers{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Now a Cardin Label is for 2-Year-Olds |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-05-02 |page=50 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/05/02/archives/now-a-cardin-label-is-for-2yearolds.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Cardin wasn't the first in France to use the big, working man's zipper, but he is the man who made the idea famous.}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Chanel and Cardin Share Spotlight in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-07-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/07/30/archives/chanel-and-cardin-share-spotlight-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=14 |quote=There are industrial zippers on suits and dresses; Cardin even puts them on mink windbreakers...}} as those details peaked among designers in 1966. His cutouts included bare midriffs overlain with geometric shapes.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=Two-piece dresses with low hipster skirts and loose little tops bared the midriff except in front, where a diamond-shaped insert linked the two.}} He liked geometric diamond forms,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=One of Cardin's favorite necklines for day and evening dresses has cut-out diamond-shaped design.}} jackets that fell to a low triangular peak at the bottom of the front closure,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Chanel and Cardin Share Spotlight in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-07-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/07/30/archives/chanel-and-cardin-share-spotlight-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=14 |quote=...Cardin showed...suits with jacket hems forming a V in front...}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Suits often have the hems of jackets cut in triangles or half moons.}} T-bar cutout necklines,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Chanel and Cardin Share Spotlight in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-07-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/07/30/archives/chanel-and-cardin-share-spotlight-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=14 |quote=...Cardin showed...his usual T-bar or cutout necklines.}} metal neck rings anchoring shift dresses,{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=292 |chapter=1966 |quote=Cardin's dresses are half sculptures, little shifts suspended from ring collars, or cut-out discs and squares.}} and the large-scale targets, circles, and triangles that were popular at the time across simple A-line shift minidresses.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=....[H]is new spring-summer collection...is full of not-so-new triangles, bull's-eyes and cutouts...}} That year, he showed tights and shoes that matched his miniskirts, often having them all exactly the same color, a combination he felt made mini lengths more wearable for women of various ages.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=A red suit...comes out with red stockings and red shoes. That is the way he thinks his very short skirts look best.}}{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Cardin Here for Busy Week |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-05-10 |page=40 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/05/10/archives/cardin-here-for-busy-week.html?searchResultPosition=13 |quote=Women of any age and shape can take short skirts, Mr. Cardin persisted, if they wear them with stockings to match the dresses. 'The stockings must be heavy, not light,' he warned.}} He also introduced the combination of jumper minidress over a bodystocking or over turtleneck and tights, a functional dress scheme also favored by other designers of the period and one that Cardin would continue to show well into the seventies. His jumper minidresses of 1966 often featured deeply cutaway shoulders, geometric cutouts, and suspender-like straps somewhat reminiscent of the suspender minis Courrèges had shown in 1965. Colors were vivid and graphic.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=A dress...in chevron strips of white, hot pink and bitter green could be this year's Mondrian....[S]leeveless short white crepe dress...dominated by a huge bull's-eye in orange, yellow and black.}} Shoes were flat and square-toed in the dominant style of the time.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Chanel and Cardin Share Spotlight in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-07-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/07/30/archives/chanel-and-cardin-share-spotlight-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=14 |quote=...Cardin showed...his usual square-toed, flat-heeled shoes.}} Cardin's 1966 Space Age look was completed by dome-shaped hats and flaring, helmet-like, geometric headwear that covered the entire head except for the eyes and resembled similar styles shown by Rudi Gernreich in 1964.{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=286 |chapter=1964 |quote=Rudi Gernreich...turns to...felt yashmaks and suede balaclavas.}} He made his penchant for scalloped edges fit the new geometric mode by making the scallops prominent and oversized on the hem or the leading edge of asymmetric jacket closures that often fastened on the far side, as Cardin had long preferred, but now were closed with tabs.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=Cardin's suit jackets begin to button way over on one shoulder with a little tab: they have jagged closings and scalloped or half-moon cutouts on the bottom.}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Chanel and Cardin Share Spotlight in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-07-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/07/30/archives/chanel-and-cardin-share-spotlight-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=14 |quote=Daytime coats still have scalloped or cutout shapes in the front where they button.}} Fabrics were often the substantial double-faced ones of the period also favored by Courrèges.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=There are plenty of double-faced coats...}}{{cite book |last1=Winkelman |first1=Anne K. |title=Standard Reference Encyclopedia Yearbook 1967: Events of 1966 |publisher=Standard Reference Works Publishing Company, Inc. |location=New York, NY, USA |pages=152, 153 |chapter=Fashion |quote=One of the spring outfits from Pierre Cardin is a two-piece dress in white wool gabardine, the top having a stand-up collar and a zipper down the front.}} In 1966, he became one of the first designers to include purses in a couture show, his made by Gucci.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=Cardin showed handbags – possibly the first time any couturier has – ...done just for him by Gucci.}}

It was during this period that he began to be known for capes and ponchos, having shown capelet collars for a long time. He made them look futuristic via geometric circular or square armholes{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Chanel and Cardin Share Spotlight in Paris |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-07-30 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/07/30/archives/chanel-and-cardin-share-spotlight-in-paris.html?searchResultPosition=14 |quote=...Cardin showed capes with round portals where the arms slip through...}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...armholes that were cut like low little portholes or squared...}} and precisely curvilinear arches cut into the sides for the arms.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=The new Cardin cape, in long and short versions, has a high, cut-out arch where the arms go.}} Cape and poncho sleeves were also shown.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...the one-shoulder cape-sleeve dress with the tilted hem...}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...poncho sleeves...}} He adapted his love of asymmetric hems, earlier a part of his 1930s look, to the new Space Age period by showing hemlines that were shorter on one side than the other, sometimes called a tilted hem, seen especially on evening dresses;{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=Here are some of the Cardinisms that made the last five years [back to 1964] such good ones: ...tilted hems on evening dresses...}} miniskirts longer in the front than in the back;{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=A batch of Lurex dresses have strips instead of skirts, which are shorter in back than in front.}} skirts consisting of strips, panels, and loops of fabric of various lengths and widths,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...dresses that are nearly all doubled-up loops that have a fringey look...}} some petal-like;{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...petal hems...}} pleated skirts with fluted hems that curled up and down;{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...all-over pleated dresses with wavy hemlines...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It Will Be Cardin, but a Subdued Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-05-03 |page=26 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/05/03/archives/it-will-be-cardin-but-a-subdued-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=...[H]emlines have an upward flip at intervals so the pleats 'spread out like a flower'.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It Will Be Cardin, but a Subdued Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-05-03 |page=26 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/05/03/archives/it-will-be-cardin-but-a-subdued-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=The many pleated dresses, in chiffons as well as wool crepes, certainly move.}} and other unusual forms. These trends became particularly notable beginning in 1967, and the skirts of strips, loops, and panels would be shown through 1970.{{cite journal |last1=Nemy |first1=Enid |title=Cardin Boutique for Men at Bonwit's Acquires Sister Shop |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-09-13 |page=F50 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/13/archives/cardin-boutique-for-men-at-bonwits-acquires-sister-shop.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=...[H]ighlights of the Cardin collection...uneven hemlines...[T]here are skirts that rise in one place and fall in another...}}

Interest in Space Age looks would peak in mainstream fashion during 1966 and part of 1967 and then most designers would move into other areas.{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=259 |chapter=1960-1969: The Revolutionary Sixties |quote=By [the end of] 1967 fashion had finished with the 'space age' look, and designers began to see the future in terms of the present again.}} Cardin was one of a small group of designers who remained enamored of futuristic Space Age looks for several more years. The best known of these designers were André Courrèges, Rudi Gernreich, Emanuel Ungaro, and Paco Rabanne, all of whom tied their ideas of the future to mini lengths.{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |author-link=Jane Mulvagh |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=295 |chapter=1967 |quote=...Courrèges, Rabanne and Ungaro...refused to give up the long-legged, short-skirted mode.}} Cardin's work was noted for including a variety of lengths from 1967 on, particularly his characteristic asymmetric hems, while keeping it all futuristic-looking.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Dresses and coats reach way up above the knees, cover them, or conceal most of the leg....[M]any of his skirts have mixed-up hems.}}

His 1967 women's collections continued with zippers,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=What's very, very familiar are...the big zipper closings...}} pleating, side closures,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...[T]he suits with the banded hems on the skirts and side closings on the jackets.}} scallops,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Cardin has been scalloping hems and...dipping them for a long time...}} jumper minidresses,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=The girls had on tight-ribbed, short-sleeved sweaters under jumper skirts cut to stand out from the hips.}} one-shouldered evening dresses,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...Cardin's...candy box bows on one-shoulder dresses...}} geometric necklines,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...Cardin's cutout and halter necklines...}} sculptural metal collars,{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=298 |chapter=1967-68 |quote=Silver cast metal neck-sculpture supporting a sheath of black crepe.}} rolled hems and edges,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...Cardin's...skirts with rolled hems...}} and other familiar Cardin features and added diagonal closures,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...Cardin's...asymmetric closings...[J]ackets...have diagonal closings.}} a greater variety of geometric pockets,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...[T]he pockets are different this time....[T]hey have a square mailbox shape, a doughnut shape or make a triangle. The pockets have rolled borders and don't show the slit...where the hand goes in.}} and metal or metal-looking plastic used for tab closures,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Cardin's women's suits have metal fasteners on jackets...}} wide belts,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...[T]he girls' jumpers now have wide metal belts cinching in the waists.}} ring collars, and hem bands.{{cite journal |last1=Nemy |first1=Enid |title=Cardin Boutique for Men at Bonwit's Acquires Sister Shop |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-09-13 |page=F50 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/13/archives/cardin-boutique-for-men-at-bonwits-acquires-sister-shop.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=Occasionally, a ring of plastic aluminum circles and stiffens a collar, a waistband or a hemline.}} For fall, he included deeply flaring, Medieval-looking sleeves.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...What looks newest in the Cardin collection is a long, droopy medieval sleeve whose point drops almost below the knee.}}{{cite journal |last1=Nemy |first1=Enid |title=Cardin Boutique for Men at Bonwit's Acquires Sister Shop |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-09-13 |page=F50 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/13/archives/cardin-boutique-for-men-at-bonwits-acquires-sister-shop.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=...'[H]ighlights of the Cardin collection...[t]he long droopy medieval sleeves...}} frog closings,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=There are lots of frog closings...}} large collars that framed the head from the back,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=V-necked dresses have stand-up collars set almost in back of the neck....What's very, very familiar are...the tent dresses with stand-up collars;...the collar that stands up in back and frames the face – only it's bigger now...}} complexly gored skirts,{{cite journal |last1=Nemy |first1=Enid |title=Cardin Boutique for Men at Bonwit's Acquires Sister Shop |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-09-13 |page=F50 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/13/archives/cardin-boutique-for-men-at-bonwits-acquires-sister-shop.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=...[H]ighlights of the Cardin collection...umbrella-gored skirts...}} front lacing on jackets and coats,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Cardin has lacing on the front of...suit and...coat...with whip-thin, flat leather sashes tied high up around the ribs.}} coats with big, colored circles on them with matching deep hems of fox dyed to match the circles,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Off-white coats that end at mid-knee have giant-size dots in fuchsia, purple or brown with fox hems matching the dots....What's very, very familiar are...the big fox or ostrich hems on daytime and evening dresses...}} completely sunburst-pleated capes,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...sunburst pleats now used in a long purple wool cape...}} and more black than usual.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Cardin used to drench his collections with color but, like every other Paris designer these days, he shows lots of black.}} Many of his silhouettes were in the flared trapeze/A-line/conical shapes widespread at the time.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=His jackets...flare wildly out from tiny shoulders or are long and narrow...What's very, very familiar are Cardin's...tent dresses...}}

His Space Age womenswear during these few years was in line with the mood of the design world and became very influential,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...Cardin has been imitated so often.}} even in the US, where new Cardin women's boutiques opened in prominent department stores.{{cite journal |last1=Nemy |first1=Enid |title=Cardin Boutique for Men at Bonwit's Acquires Sister Shop |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-09-13 |page=F50 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/13/archives/cardin-boutique-for-men-at-bonwits-acquires-sister-shop.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=The [Bonwit Teller] Cardin boutique for women will open Oct. 10...}} By 1967, some of his adult styles for both men and women were also offered in juniors'{{cite journal |title=First Junior Collection by Cardin is Unveiled |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-06-11 |page=37 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/11/archives/first-junior-collection-by-cardin-is-unveiled.html?searchResultPosition=13 |quote=Pierre Cardin showed his first junior collection yesterday. His teen-age boys' clothes are inventive and avant-garde but his girls' designs are small versions of big sister's wardrobe. Boys' coat of brown plaid tweed is worn with a beige turtle-neck sweater, narrow gray flannel pants shaped over the instep and a ginger-colored fedora. Girls' gray flannel tube of a dress has a stand-up collar. It was shown with dark green nylon mesh stockings and beaver hat.}} and children's sizes.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Now a Cardin Label is for 2-Year-Olds |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-05-02 |page=50 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/05/02/archives/now-a-cardin-label-is-for-2yearolds.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Pierre Cardin...introduced...a collection of fall-winter ready-to-wear for children aged 2 to 8....The 'cosmonaut' suit – as Cardin calls it – is now for little boys, and the cut-out jumper he showed last summer is for little girls...[T]he big ring zippers on their clothes...were so easy to pull up and down....Little girls' coats and dresses have the same rolled hems and flaring skirts that were seen in the Cardin haute couture show in January. There are lots of capes with them, too, with giant zippers.}}

HIs menswear from the last three years of the decade enjoyed a mass audience, still outselling his womenswear by a large margin.{{cite journal |last1=Barry |first1=Joseph |title=Cardin Discusses – "La Mode Masculine" |journal=The New York Times |date=1968-04-21 |page=84 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/21/archives/cardin-discusses-la-mode-masculine.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=...[A]ccording to Jean Manusardi, director of Cardin's foreign operations, men and women of the world are dressing in...Cardin apparel to the tune of 22 million dollars. Last year, two thirds of it was accounted for by men...}}{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marilyn |title=Cardin Label Going on U.S.-Made Suits |journal=The New York Times |date=1968-09-03 |page=38 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/09/03/archives/cardin-label-going-on-usmade-suits.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...[M]en's fashion has become infinitely more exciting than women's...[S]uits bearing the label of Pierre Cardin...will be sold in half a dozen New York stores...At least three stores will have PIerre Cardin boutiques. Bonwit Teller...introduced Cardin clothes to the United States when it opened its...boutique...two years ago [1966]...The first Cardin made-in-America suits will be sold in 80 stores around the country starting this month.}} He continued with his shaped, fitted, wide-lapelled, wide-tied, flared-leg suits, plus lots of zippers and turtlenecks for more casual clothes.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=His boutique collection for men and women[:]...The men wore ankle-high boots, jackets and trousers with big industrial zippers for closings and pockets, and turtle-neck sweaters.}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin's Collection Has Familiar Look, Both Pretty and Sexy |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-07-29 |page=FS14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/07/29/archives/cardins-collection-has-familiar-look-both-pretty-and-sexy.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...Cardin boys still have zippers all over their suits...}} His Cosmonaut outfits grew in popularity,{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Maxi? To Cardin, C'est Bon |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-10-14 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/10/14/archives/maxi-to-cardin-cest-bon.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...[T]he cosmonaut style...has...caught on...in certain adventurous circles.}} consisting of fitted, belted, often sleeveless tunics over slim, often flared trousers in various fabrics, paired with turtlenecks and boots.{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=A Little Newcomer Joins Cardin's His'n'Her Fashion Line |journal=The New York Times |date=1968-02-01 |page=32 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/01/archives/shop-talk-a-little-newcomer-joins-cardins-his-n-her-fashion-line.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...[H]is male cosmonaut styles...consist of a white wool sleeveless tunic with Cardin's beloved rolled collar and outsize zipper down the side and across one pocket....A navy turtle-neck...go[es] underneath...There's a green corduroy edition with sleeves and matching pants...In the men's boutique, a brown and white herringbone cosmonaut suit (sleeveless tunic and matching pants)...Bonwit's also took Cardin's navy twill Nehru jacket...that dashing types are wearing...with white turtle necks and gray flannel pants and had it copied in navy flannel...}}

File:1968 Pierre Cardin dress, pink heat moulded Dynel.jpg, 1968|alt=Pierre Cardin dress, heat-moulded Dynel, 1968]]

Cardin continued with his futuristic womenswear in 1968, showing synthetic outfits of molded Cardine fabric whose surfaces stood out in geometric forms, garments that formed stark geometric shapes when the arms were held out to the sides, metallic silver leather, phosphorescent fabrics (also shown by Paco Rabanne),{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Ungaro and Heim Go for Shorts, While Paco Sticks to His Metals |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-30 |page=24 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/30/archives/ungaro-and-heim-go-for-shorts-while-paco-sticks-to-his-metals.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Paco[ Rabanne]'s show...had dresses...with the bodice and midriff skirt in transparent phosphorescent rhodoid plastics.}} light-up electric dresses (also shown by Diana Dew),{{cite magazine |title=Turn On, Turn Off |magazine=Time |date=1967-01-20 |url=https://time.com/archive/6890030/fashion-turn-on-turn-off/ |access-date=2025-01-28 |quote=Diana Dew...has been able to produce minidresses with throbbing hearts and pulsating belly stars, as well as pants with flashing vertical side seams and horizontal bands that march up and down the legs in luminous sequence.}} increased use of metal,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It Will Be Cardin, but a Subdued Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-05-03 |page=26 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/05/03/archives/it-will-be-cardin-but-a-subdued-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=There's plenty of hardware...Cardin is...the designer who lifted big, working-clothes zippers into high fashion. So the belts...fasten with big, unusual metal clasps and there are lots of metal buttons.}} and extensive use of cutouts, sometimes directly over each breast.{{cite journal |last1=Lelyveld |first1=Joseph |title=After the Sari, the Miniskirt? |journal=The New York Times |date=1968-02-19 |page=46 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/19/archives/after-the-sari-the-miniskirt.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=Cardin... showed...electrically lighted discotheque dresses that shone brilliantly in the dark, leather outfits in phosphorescent silver, metal collars, backless gowns, and a dress with two large circular cut-outs on the bosom.}} He used vinyl and other forms of plastic liberally.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It Will Be Cardin, but a Subdued Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-05-03 |page=26 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/05/03/archives/it-will-be-cardin-but-a-subdued-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=...[P]lastic appliqués...marked the couture collection Cardin showed in Paris earlier this year.}} He and fellow futurist André Courrèges favored a basic, versatile dress scheme of ribknit bodystocking or turtleneck and tights under various forms of jumper minidresses{{cite book |last1=Heathcote |first1=Phyllis W. |title=Britannica Book of the Year 1970: Events of 1969 |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. |isbn=0-85229-144-2 |page=345 |chapter=Fashion and Dress |date=1970 |quote=Rib-knit 'catsuits,' strongly featured by Cardin under coats and tunics in his fall collection and used as the basis for almost every Courrèges model at that time, were in heavy demand.}}{{cite journal |last1=Nemy |first1=Enid |title=Cardin Boutique for Men at Bonwit's Acquires Sister Shop |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-09-13 |page=F50 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/13/archives/cardin-boutique-for-men-at-bonwits-acquires-sister-shop.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=One dress, with a circular cutout at the midriff and a deep slit up the center of the skirt, makes tights mandatory...}} or microminiskirts.{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Maxi? To Cardin, C'est Bon |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-10-14 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/10/14/archives/maxi-to-cardin-cest-bon.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=...the minutest skirts worn over knitted jumpsuits.}}{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=300 |chapter=1969 |quote=...[T]he most extreme looks from Paris, from Cardin, Ungaro, Courrèges, are now about the body instead of the space suit.}} Cardin also showed the thigh- or hip-high leather or vinyl stretch boots that were popular with designers at the end of the sixties,{{cite book |last1=Hasson |first1=Rachelle |title=World Book Year Book 1968: Events of 1967 |publisher=Field Enterprises Educational Corporation |location=Chicago, Illinois, USA |page=336 |chapter=Fashion |quote=Women...fancied high boots as a means of covering their new length of leg. High-rise stretch vinyl or patent leather provided glovelike sleekness...Boots stretched to the knees, to the thighs, or even to cover the entire leg like [a] fisherman's hip boots.}} Cardin's often paired with matching geometric bonnet-hats and his Space Age-looking geometric minidresses and turtlenecks.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...The Cardin sweater...has a high turtle neck.}}

He finally showed women's trousers in 1968, initially as part of his unisex clothes, an important trend of this enlightened era. He produced identical tunics, turtlenecks, flared trousers, hip belts, and boots for both sexes,{{cite magazine |last1=Carlton |first1=Helen |title=Uniworld of His and Hers |magazine=Life |date=1968-06-21 |volume=64 |issue=25 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2VQEAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22uniworld+of+his+%26+hers%22&pg=PA86 |quote=Having their hair done at Carita's in Paris are François and Betty Catroux, in zippered pant suits from Pierre Cardin. Carita recently opened the his-and-her salon.}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=The Cardin show...started off with a speech...that touched on...the fewer number of trousers about to be seen [than in other designers' shows].}} and also made ribknit jumpsuits/bodystockings and ribknit trousers for women that extended into a thickened flare over the top of the foot.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...[L]ong [knit] pants...look like soft leggings. The pants cover the tops of the ankle-high boots...}} He now applied his favorite batwing sleeves to jumpsuits that formed a geometric triangle shape when the arms were extended to the sides.

Also in 1968, Cardin opened a furniture and interior decor store called Environnement.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=There's a new Cardin-owned boutique for home furnishings...called Environnement that opened at the end of December [1968].}}

In 1969, his futuristic looks were augmented by Space Age belt fastenings covered by transparent plastic domes;{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...[B]ig belts with transparent plastic domes on the buckle sit low on the hips...}} chrome-shiny geometric jewelry and belt buckles; leather added{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=When Cardin doesn't use vinyl, he uses leather, even to outline armholes.}} to his continued use of vinyl;{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=There is still too much vinyl in the clothes}} newly trapunto-stitched versions of his face-framing collars;{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Cardin's calla lily collar, which rises in back to frame the head, has trapunto...}} additional trapunto detailing;{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...dresses [with trapunto] on their high, ring collars and banded hems.}} and plush ring-hoods.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=HIs fur hoods are shaped like rings. They don't cover the back of the head, but they make pretty face-framers.}} He adopted the long, lean, fit-and-flare look of sleek knits also favored by Yves Saint Laurent at the time, with calf-length skirts, turtlenecks, skullcap-like headgear, and hip-slung belts. He also continued with his more flowing, diaphanous looks{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=Dresses with scalloped layered hems, big sleeves made of organdy oval petals, pointed hemlines or easy and big flounced hems...}} like masterfully bias-cut skirts, asymmetric hems, floating panels,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...one-sleeve dresses with the loose panel over the other arm...}} and ponchos and capes,{{cite book |last1=Dubois |first1=Ruth Mary |title=The Americana Annual, 1970: An Encyclopedia of the Events of 1969 |publisher=Americana Corporation |isbn=0-7172-0200-3 |page=288 |chapter=Fashion |date=1970 |quote=...Pierre Cardin showed the full-circle cape.}} now making ponchos into skirts and dresses{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...[H]is dresses...looked like big, soft wool scarves, belted, with wildly uneven handkerchief hems.}}{{cite book |last1=Livingston |first1=Kathryn Zahony |title=World Book Year Book 1970: A Review of the Events of 1969 |publisher=Field Enterprises Educational Corporation |location=Chicago, Illinois, USA |isbn=0-7166-0473-6 |page=342 |chapter=Fashion |date=1973 |quote=...Pierre Cardin's poncho skirts with thigh-high sides, full-length front and back.}} and adding shawls and shawl-like jackets.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=His completely circular shawl is one of the freshest ideas in the Paris collections...}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...On a red and gray plaid suit, Cardin's jacket is a shawl with little armholes. Some spring suits have doubled-up fringe on the hems of jackets or skirts.}} He included maxiskirts among his variety of skirt lengths, believing that they had become popular because women were now used to covered legs again with the ubiquity of women's trousers.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Pierre Cardin and Hubert de Givenchy have joined that pack of Paris couturiers who are showing lots of long skirts and long coats in their collections for winter....The maxidresses that Cardin sent out with his little minis (there were plenty of them, too) have ankle-length, bias-cut skirts and a wonderful kind of slouch to them. Some...have rows of fat fringe in leather.}}{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Maxi? To Cardin, C'est Bon |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-10-14 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/10/14/archives/maxi-to-cardin-cest-bon.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=Cardin is positive that the long dress is in the wind for daytime. 'The eye is ready for it, now that pants have been accepted,' he declared. Cardin sprung the maxidress with bias-cut skirt in his fall collection...}} Miniskirts were offered as well in this year when the rest of the fashion world joined his long advocacy of choice in hemlines.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...little minis (there were plenty of them, too)...a short dress cut like Robin Hood's jerkin...}} His long love of pleats was seen in both his futuristic styles and his more flowing garments,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It Will Be Cardin, but a Subdued Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-05-03 |page=26 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/05/03/archives/it-will-be-cardin-but-a-subdued-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=The clothes, for next fall, have the...plethora of pleats...that marked the couture collection Cardin showed in Paris earlier this year...The many pleated dresses, in chiffons as well as wool crepes, certainly move.}} and his love of decolletage and Directoire lines was taken to extremes in his eveningwear of the end of the decade.{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=311 |chapter=1969 |quote=...[S]kirts slit thigh-high and fringed dresses with deep décolletés were all the rage in Paris this spring: Cardin's white, pailetted 'merveilleuse' dress was the most extreme example: it was cut so low that the nipples peeped out over a rounded directoire neckline.}}

Cardin's attitude toward fashion shows varied. In the mid-sixties, he added two additional private client showings to his normal biannual couture shows,{{cite journal |last1=Molli |first1=Jeanne |title=Paris Notes: The Trends for Spring |journal=The New York Times |date=1964-01-16 |page=32 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/16/archives/paris-notes-the-trends-for-spring.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=...Cardin...intends to do four, rather than two, collections a year. In addition to his semiannual showings to press and buyers, he will make two small private customer collections...The private collection designs will be exclusives, available only in his Faubourg St. Honoré salon.}} but he also disliked being expected to have so many shows per year{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Castillo, Cardin and Chanel Present 3 Views of Spring, 1967 |journal=The New York Times |date=1967-01-28 |page=R34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/28/archives/castillo-cardin-and-chanel-present-3-views-of-spring-1967.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Cardin has always protested against designing two collections a year, and this one used most of the brilliant details from earlier collections.}} and by the end of the decade would be known for fewer shows but with many more outfits presented than other designers, into the hundreds of pieces,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It Will Be Cardin, but a Subdued Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-05-03 |page=26 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/05/03/archives/it-will-be-cardin-but-a-subdued-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=About one-third the size of the Paris collection, the American line will consist of 75 to 80 styles.}}{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Cardin and Givenchy Showings Present a Study in Contrasts |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-08-02 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/08/02/archives/cardin-and-givenchy-showings-present-a-study-in-contrasts.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=The Cardin show – the longest in Paris...}} resulting in very long fashion shows in which models walked very fast to save time,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Pierre Cardin: Always a Leap Ahead |journal=The New York Times |date=1966-01-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/01/29/archives/pierre-cardin-always-a-leap-ahead.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=...[G]irls...have strict instructions to race around the salon as fast as they can.}} a tendency that would continue into the seventies.

After launching his design career doing costumes for Jean Cocteau's 1946 film La Belle et La Bête, Cardin would return to costuming in the 1960s and outfit several films, mostly those starring close friend Jeanne Moreau. These included Joseph Losey's Eva (1962),{{cite journal |last1=Pithers |first1=Ellie |title=Jeanne Moreau's Best On-Screen Style Moments |journal=British Vogue |date=2020-10-06 |url=https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/jeanne-moreau-best-screen-style-moments |access-date=2025-03-06 |publisher=Condé Nast |location=London, England, U.K. |quote=Smokily seductive Moreau played a gold-digging French courtesan...Pierre Cardin...creates the costumes...}} Marcel Ophüls's Banana Peel (1963), Jean-Louis Richard's Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964), Anthony Asquith's The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964),{{cite journal |last1=Pithers |first1=Ellie |title=Jeanne Moreau's Best On-Screen Style Moments |journal=British Vogue |date=2020-10-06 |url=https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/jeanne-moreau-best-screen-style-moments |access-date=2025-03-06 |publisher=Condé Nast |location=London, England, U.K. |quote=...[C]ostumes by...Pierre Cardin, Edith Head and Antonio Castillo are worthy of plaudits.}} Louis Malle's Viva Maria! (1965),{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=269 |chapter=1960-1969: The Revolutionary Sixties |quote=...Viva Maria...influenced fashion when it arrived in Britain.}} and François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black (1968), as well as Anthony Asquith's The V.I.P.s (1963) and Anthony Mann's A Dandy in Aspic (1968). For François Truffaut's influential 1962 film Jules et Jim,{{cite book |last1=Howell |first1=Georgina |title=In Vogue: Sixty Years of Celebrities and Fashion from British Vogue |date=1978 |publisher=Penguin Books Ltd. |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |isbn=0-14-00-4955-X |page=276 |chapter=1961-62 |quote=The Truffaut film Jules et Jim sets a fashion for grandmother spectacles with round wire frames, long mufflers, gaiters, boots, kilts, Gorblimey caps and knickerbockers....Jean Shrimpton and the Jules et Jim look: knickerbockers and Jackie Coogan cap, black leather jerkin and white cotton shirt.}} star Jeanne Moreau wore several Cardin pieces that were from her own wardrobe.{{cite book |last1=Lambert |first1=Eleanor |title=1963 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1962 |publisher=Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. |pages=363 |chapter=Fashion and Dress |quote=For Jules et Jim, a French art film starring Jeanne Moreau, Pierre Cardin designed bias-cut, long-jacket suits, worn with a side-slanting visored cap, and the striped cotton beach shirt which became a uniform at beaches across the world.}}

Cardin also created Patrick MacNee's costumes for season five of UK television series The Avengers, airing in 1967.

In the first half of the 1970s, Cardin was still the most prominent menswear designer in the world, but the menswear revolution he had helped foster in the 1960s was just about over and by the mid-seventies his menswear would be more subdued. His womenswear was still in line with mainstream fashion in the earliest seventies, sometimes considered as influential as Yves Saint Laurent's,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Couture Alive, Pulse Fading |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-01-28 |page=68 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/28/archives/couture-alive-pulse-fading.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent, the trend‐setters of the last few years...}} but by the mid-seventies it would be somewhat out of step with mainstream women's fashion and would be considered eccentric,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=25 Years of Cardin: Couture to Wine |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-10-31 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/31/archives/25-years-of-cardin-couture-to-wine.html?searchResultPosition=16 |quote=In the seventies, the space clothes...began to pall a bit...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Sets a Lively Pace |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-07-26 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/26/archives/paris-couture-sets-a-lively-pace.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=Hardly a conventional style appeared among the 200 or so pieces.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=A Touch of Derring-Do |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-05-17 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/17/archives/a-touch-of-derringdo.html?searchResultPosition=12 |quote=Even in Paris, Cardin is considered a wild man...[Y]ou can tell a Cardin without looking at the label.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Courageous Courreges: He Refuses to Flee to the 30's |journal=The New York Times |date=1974-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/01/archives/courageous-courreges-he-refuses-to-flee-to-the-30s-tailored-chiffon.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=There are some pretty things, but they're overshadowed by the hobble‐skirt dresses, the batwing outfits, the split‐level skirts edged in feathers, the tufted‐and‐tasseled sofa effects and the colored baubles the size of a baby's head that border the cape‐back of a black dress.}} though he did reflect some of the trends of the period. He continued to produce enormous fashion shows with hundreds of outfits, so there was plenty of variety to encompass a number of looks.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Moderne, but Chanel Toujours Chanel |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-22 |page=66 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/22/archives/cardin-moderne-but-chapel-toujours-chanel.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=...a collection of some 300 styles...}} He became better known in the mid-seventies for licensing his name for all kinds of products.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=25 Years of Cardin: Couture to Wine |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-10-31 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/31/archives/25-years-of-cardin-couture-to-wine.html?searchResultPosition=16 |quote=In recent years, his interest has transcended fashion. His name is on chocolates and cars, sheets and towels and furniture. He owns a theater in Paris called L'Espace Cardin...The 250 products bearing his name result in a total sale of $120‐million annually at the retail level, Mr. Cardin estimates...}} Toward the end of the decade, he would regain some influence in womenswear as his interpretations of the big-shoulder-pads trend would coincide with what other designers were doing and bring him renewed attention.

As in the rest of the world, Cardin's reputation in the Soviet Union had grown since his first trip there in 1963, and during the seventies he would be known as the most prominent non-Soviet designer in the country, a favorite of celebrated figures in the arts and politics.{{cite journal |last1=Kuprina |first1=Nadya |title=How Pierre Cardin Fell in Love with Soviet Russia |journal=Russia Beyond |date=2020-12-30 |url=https://www.rbth.com/arts/333239-pierre-cardin-ussr-russia |access-date=2025-06-06 |quote=In the 1970s, Cardin was considered the main Western fashion star in the USSR.}}

By the early seventies, artistic director Andre Oliver had been given responsibility for Cardin's ready-to-wear lines,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin and Valentino Collections – Today and Yesteryear |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-05-12 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/12/archives/cardin-and-valentino-collections-today-and-yesteryear.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=[Andre Oliver's spring 1971 ready-to-wear] collection is based on the Cardin couture clothes shown in Paris a few months ago.}} specialty lines,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=For Valentino and Cardin, Cinched Waistlines |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-12-02 |page=60 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/02/archives/for-valentino-and-cardin-cinched-waistlines.html?searchResultPosition=23 |quote=...[A] sportswear collection by Andre Oliver, Pierre Cardin's assistant,...was officially called Pierre Cardin II.}}{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=Winter '72: There Will Be More Fur (But Less Fun) |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-07-05 |page=44 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/05/archives/winter-72-there-will-be-more-fur-but-less-fun.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=The first fur collection labeled Pierre Cardin is here, designed by Andre Oliver.}} and for Cardin collections tailored to various national markets,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=The Extravagant Gowns Made to Dazzle at Night |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-10-24 |page=84 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/24/archives/the-extravagant-gowns-made-to-dazzle-at-night.html?searchResultPosition=20 |quote=Pierre Cardin's collection, one of the hits in Paris, has been 'adapted to the tempo of American women' by his assistant, Andre Oliver.}} the clothes always adaptations of Cardin's couture collections.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It's Showtime, and Cardin Takes the Spotlight |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-10-14 |page=52 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/14/archives/its-showtime-and-cardin-takes-the-spotlight.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=His assistant, Andre Oliver, practically commutes to New York to make sure the collection here reflects the one in Paris.}}

Though no longer groundbreaking as it had been in the early 1960s and during the Mod era of the mid-sixties, Cardin's early seventies menswear was still influential and popular,{{cite journal |last1=Klemesrud |first1=Judy |title=Athletes Today are Turning In Blue Jeans for Peacock Feathers |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-12-07 |page=58 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/12/07/archives/athletes-today-are-turning-in-blue-jeans-for-peacock-feathers.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=Rod Gilbert...the most dapper member of the New York Rangers hockey team...is a fan of Pierre Cardin, and owns about 25 of the French couturier's suits.}} characterized by high armholes, large collars, double-breasted jackets, and high closures, all of which were now widespread menswear trends that Cardin had helped establish.{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=It's for Men Only: A Mink by Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-11-13 |page=49 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/11/13/archives/its-for-men-only-a-mink-by-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=The designer's touches are...the fit of the armholes, the big collar and the high double‐breasting.}}

Cardin's early seventies womenswear continued in the direction he was headed in the late sixties: a variety of lengths; skirts consisting of slits, slashes,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Moderne, but Chanel Toujours Chanel |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-22 |page=66 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/22/archives/cardin-moderne-but-chapel-toujours-chanel.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Pierre Cardin...slashed openings on some of the long dresses from miniskirt level to the wide hem band. The openings were in the form of circles, pears or just plain rectangles.}} panels,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It's Showtime, and Cardin Takes the Spotlight |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-10-14 |page=52 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/14/archives/its-showtime-and-cardin-takes-the-spotlight.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=Dresses are carved up into panels when they don't have a series of portholes cut into the skirt just above the hem, and long coats have at least one split, often more.}} strips{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=7th Avenue Gets a Gallic Touch, and the Name is Pierre Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-05-06 |page=70 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/06/archives/7th-avenue-gets-a-gallic-touch-and-the-name-is-pierre-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=...[T]he models swung along in dresses whose skirts were a mass of...strips....They kicked up a storm in leather, crepe and wool.}} loops, and asymmetric hems;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin and Valentino Collections – Today and Yesteryear |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-05-12 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/12/archives/cardin-and-valentino-collections-today-and-yesteryear.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=Some of the skirts have pointy hemlines...}} ribknit tops;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It's Showtime, and Cardin Takes the Spotlight |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-10-14 |page=52 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/14/archives/its-showtime-and-cardin-takes-the-spotlight.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=Separate skirts are split and curved and paired with skinny ribbed sweaters.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin and Valentino Collections – Today and Yesteryear |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-05-12 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/12/archives/cardin-and-valentino-collections-today-and-yesteryear.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=It all starts with a sweater — a very tight sweater...}} flaring sleeves;{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=Winter '72: There Will Be More Fur (But Less Fun) |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-07-05 |page=44 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/05/archives/winter-72-there-will-be-more-fur-but-less-fun.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=...recognizable Cardin touches:...sleeves that widen at the wrist and printed linings.}} capes and ponchos;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=7th Avenue Gets a Gallic Touch, and the Name is Pierre Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-05-06 |page=70 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/06/archives/7th-avenue-gets-a-gallic-touch-and-the-name-is-pierre-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=There was...a...cape...that hung from the head and ended around the ankles. The other capes had Bedouin‐like hoods that popped over the head and gave the same all-enveloping effect.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin, At Least, Said Something New |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-07-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/29/archives/cardin-at-least-said-something-new.html?searchResultPosition=19 |quote=There was only one poncho — a short black evening dress that was sliced up the sides to the top of the panty hose the model was wearing.}} jumper dresses from mini to knee-length{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Moderne, but Chanel Toujours Chanel |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-22 |page=66 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/22/archives/cardin-moderne-but-chapel-toujours-chanel.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=...suede jumpers...}} worn with bodystockings or turtleneck and tights;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Moderne, but Chanel Toujours Chanel |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-22 |page=66 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/22/archives/cardin-moderne-but-chapel-toujours-chanel.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=The foundation for everything was a ribbed turtleneck bodystocking.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin: One Foot in the Future, the Other Planted Firmly in Today |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-07-28 |page=40 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/28/archives/cardin-one-foot-in-future-the-other-planted-firmly-in-today.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=....[T]he body is clad in heavy ribbed tights and turtleneck sweaters, usually black.}} leather sections;{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=Winter '72: There Will Be More Fur (But Less Fun) |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-07-05 |page=44 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/05/archives/winter-72-there-will-be-more-fur-but-less-fun.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=...recognizable Cardin touches: keyhole pockets, leather inserts...}} geometric patch pockets;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin and Valentino Collections – Today and Yesteryear |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-05-12 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/12/archives/cardin-and-valentino-collections-today-and-yesteryear.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=The skirts...have a big leather pocket stitched to one side, in the same color as the waistband.}} and an expansion of the women's trousers he had first shown in 1968. He continued to design in a Space Age style,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Moderne, but Chanel Toujours Chanel |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-22 |page=66 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/22/archives/cardin-moderne-but-chapel-toujours-chanel.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Pierre Cardin...made clothes that looked like the space age. There were appliqués, stitching, free‐form jewelry.}} one of just a handful of designers to do so by the early seventies,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Laroche Says 'Da' to Rus. sian Influence |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-23 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/23/archives/laroche-says-da-to-russian-influence.html?searchResultPosition=52 |quote=...[T]he modern art school of Paris fashion...includes Cardin most of the time, Courrèges, Ungaro and, this season, Feraud. Most of them think of clothes in terms of abstract shapes and use color the way a painter does...}} using a lot of vinyl and geometric cutouts in the earliest years of the decade.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Givenchy, 1970: The Approach is Positive, the Look is Softer |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-01-31 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/31/archives/givenchy-1970-the-approach-is-positive-the-look-is-softer.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=There's still too much vinyl in the Cardin collection...[O]ne long dress made of it has a snaky texture....There are still lots of cutouts at Cardin and the newest ones are over the stomach.}} Throughout the seventies, his long-favored cowl necklines,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris for Fall: Listless Start and Why Revive the 40's? |journal=The New York Times |date=1974-07-23 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/07/23/archives/paris-for-fall-listless-start-and-why-revive-the-40s-nice-start-bad.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=Pierre Cardin...dress with the cowl‐draped neckline open to below the navel.}} batwing sleeves, and pleating were signature elements of his work,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=At Paris Shows, the Latest Wrinkle in Haute Couture is Pleats |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-01-25 |page=45 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/01/25/archives/at-paris-shows-the-latest-wrinkle-in-haute-couture-is-pleats.html?searchResultPosition=39 |quote=Pleats turn up for evening in dresses that are not only pleated but tiered.}} as were the gracefully cut chiffon skirts he had been perfecting since the early sixties.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=It's Showtime, and Cardin Takes the Spotlight |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-10-14 |page=52 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/14/archives/its-showtime-and-cardin-takes-the-spotlight.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=...fluttery‐skirt chiffons.}}{{cite journal |title=From French Ready-to-Wear, That Well-Groomed |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-04-24 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/24/archives/from-french-ready-to-wear-that-wellgroomed-look.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=Cardin had as usual, his inimitable long dresses fluttering in chiffon petals, pennants and panels.}}{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=Parties at Galleries had Clear Message – The Back is Back |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-05-07 |page=82 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/07/archives/parties-at-galleries-had-clear-message-the-back-is-back.html?searchResultPosition=11 |quote=...[T]here seems to be a return to the airy, ultra femininity of the printed chiffon or muslin dress, by Cardin if it's French...}} These skirts would fit into trends particularly of the middle of the decade, when their tiers and flounces would find expression in other fabrics.

In the year 1970, the fashion industry tried to reduce women's skirt choices to just midcalf-hemmed midi skirts. Cardin showed exclusively that length in his ready-to-wear collections{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=7th Avenue Gets a Gallic Touch, and the Name is Pierre Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-05-06 |page=70 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/06/archives/7th-avenue-gets-a-gallic-touch-and-the-name-is-pierre-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=Miniskirts are not what you find at Cardin,...and he wasn't planning to budge an inch....There was plenty of leg on view, but you had to peek through slits that reached at least as high as a micro mini's hem and were sometimes carved out in a graceful arc to make the viewing easier.}} but varied lengths in his couture collections,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Givenchy, 1970: The Approach is Positive, the Look is Softer |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-01-31 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/31/archives/givenchy-1970-the-approach-is-positive-the-look-is-softer.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=He is a mini, midi and maxi man this season...}} from micromini{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Givenchy, 1970: The Approach is Positive, the Look is Softer |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-01-31 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/31/archives/givenchy-1970-the-approach-is-positive-the-look-is-softer.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=Tiny miniskirts of vinyl streamers or doubled-up loops or arrow-shaped strips go over Cardin's sheer, striped bodystockings.}} to ankle length,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Moderne, but Chanel Toujours Chanel |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-22 |page=66 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/22/archives/cardin-moderne-but-chapel-toujours-chanel.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Lengths...went all the way down to the ankle much of the time...}} while close friend and Cardin aficionado Jeanne Moreau intimated that Cardin felt that longer skirts tended to age women.{{cite journal |last1=Klemesrud |first1=Judy |title=No Longer in Love with Cardin, but Faithful to His Clothes |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-10-06 |page=60 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/10/06/archives/no-longer-in-love-with-cardin-but-faithful-to-his-clothes.html?searchResultPosition=23 |quote= 'Cardin told me he doesn't like the long skirts very much,' Miss Moreau said. 'He says very few women can wear them well without aging.'....}}

As haute couture began to decline, ready-to-wear ('prêt-à-porter') soared as well as Cardin's designs. He was the first to combine the "mini" and the "maxi" skirts of the 1970s by introducing a new hemline that had long pom-pom panels or fringes.{{cite web |url=https://www.indigobluestyle.com/post/pierre-cardin-a-trailblazer-of-fashion |title=Pierre Cardin: A Trailblazer of Fashion |website=Indigobluestyle.com |access-date=31 December 2020 |archive-date=4 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204085107/https://www.indigobluestyle.com/post/pierre-cardin-a-trailblazer-of-fashion |url-status=dead }}

Beginning in the 1970s, Cardin set another new trend: "mod chic". This trend holds true for the form or for a combination of forms, which did not exist at the time. He was the first to combine extremely short and ankle-length pieces. He made dresses with slits and batwing sleeves with novel dimensions and mixed circular movement and gypsy skirts with structured tops. These creations allowed for the geometric shapes that captivated him to be contrasted, with both circular and straight lines. Cardin became an icon for starting this popular fashion movement of the early 1970s.{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=9gFMAQAAIAAJ&q=mod+chic|last=Längle |first=Elisabeth |date=2005 |title=Pierre Cardin: Fifty years of fashion and design |location=London |publisher=Vendome Press |isbn=9780865651661 |page=28}}

He designed a handful of Space Age-looking nurses' uniforms in 1970 that featured skullcap- and Medieval-looking headgear and the variety of skirt lengths he was showing in his collections at the time, including ankle-length maxiskirts and loincloth-looking miniskirts worn over sometimes revealing translucent bodystockings.{{cite magazine |title=Fashion: Sexy in Surgery |magazine=Time |date=16 November 1970 |page=67 |url=https://time.com/archive/6838312/medicine-sexy-in-surgery/ |access-date=10 April 2025 |quote=To relieve the sterile monotony of nurses’ uniforms, fashion designer Pierre Cardin recently unveiled three new creations at a London showing...nunlike wimples with white maxidresses....a pastel green body stocking with a white miniskirt...}}

Inspired by space travel and exploration, Cardin visited NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) in 1970, where he tried on the original spacesuit worn by the first human to set foot on the Moon, Neil Armstrong.Längle (2005), p. 20 Cardin designed spacesuits for NASA in 1970.

His early seventies women's trousers were often narrow and of knit fabric and included cropped versions to wear with the popular boots of the time,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Givenchy, 1970: The Approach is Positive, the Look is Softer |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-01-31 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/31/archives/givenchy-1970-the-approach-is-positive-the-look-is-softer.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=Cardin's new pants are straight up and down but they sometimes are cut off at mid-calf.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Moderne, but Chanel Toujours Chanel |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-22 |page=66 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/22/archives/cardin-moderne-but-chapel-toujours-chanel.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=...pants in a new length—about nine inches from the floor....The reasoning for the pants seemed to be, if you wear boots, show them.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=High Marks for Dior as Fall Collections Get Underway |journal=The New York Times |date=1976-07-27 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/27/archives/high-marks-for-dior-as-fall-collections-get-under-way.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=...[T]he cropped trousers Cardin showed years ago...today are everywhere.}} a period during which women were wearing knickers and gauchos for the same purpose.{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=Knickers Hold Center Stage, but Shorts are Waiting in the Wings |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-12-26 |page=70 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/12/26/archives/knickers-hold-center-stage-but-shorts-are-waiting-in-the-wings.html?searchResultPosition=32 |quote=Women...can't show off...boots under pants....[K]nickers and gauchos [are] the ideal solution.}} He continued to show jumpsuits,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=7th Avenue Gets a Gallic Touch, and the Name is Pierre Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-05-06 |page=70 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/06/archives/7th-avenue-gets-a-gallic-touch-and-the-name-is-pierre-cardin.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=There are the jumpsuits with abstract designs on the top...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Makes Styles Look Like Fun Again |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-01-27 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/27/archives/cardin-makes-styles-look-like-fun-again.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=To keep his franchise on the space‐age look, Cardin showed skinny jumpsuits...}} including some in skin-tight vinyl.{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=Givenchy, 1970: The Approach is Positive, the Look is Softer |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-01-31 |page=22 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/31/archives/givenchy-1970-the-approach-is-positive-the-look-is-softer.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...tight vinyl sleeveless jumpsuits that look like shiny fishnet....}} Other Cardin trousers of the early seventies featured unusual seaming.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=A Touch of Derring-Do |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-05-17 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/17/archives/a-touch-of-derringdo.html?searchResultPosition=12 |quote=Pants with raised seams front and back as well as at the sides...give a squared shape.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Rudi Gernreich Keeps Them Laughing |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-10-18 |page=52 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/18/archives/rudi-gernreich-keeps-them-laughing.html?searchResultPosition=27 |quote=The brushed denim separates...[have] zippers all over the place and too much decorative stitching.}}

At the same time that Cardin was showing futuristic looks, he also drew from past eras{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Weinberg Enters the Sweater Sweepstakes |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-06-05 |page=32 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/05/archives/weinberg-enters-the-sweater-sweepstakes-fashion-talk.html?searchResultPosition=13 |quote=Some of Pierre Cardin's new dresses go all the way back to Paul Poiret, who flourished before World War I....Some go back to the nineteen‐fifties,...[a]nd some go back to the late nineteen‐sixties...}} and presented sheath skirts and tight-bodiced tailored jackets in silhouettes from the 1950s,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Moderne, but Chanel Toujours Chanel |journal=The New York Times |date=1970-07-22 |page=66 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/22/archives/cardin-moderne-but-chapel-toujours-chanel.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Cardin faltered when he cast backward glances over the history of fashion: hobble skirts, snugly fitted suit jackets...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin: One Foot in the Future, the Other Planted Firmly in Today |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-07-28 |page=40 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/28/archives/cardin-one-foot-in-future-the-other-planted-firmly-in-today.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=...[H]e swings into such styles as the yellow coat with a tiny waistline belted in black patent leather, and a great flaring skirt. And then there are suits, shaped through the bodice with myriad vertical tucks released just below the waistline to burst into a little peplum....The same tucked‐top, full skirt routine is repeated in coats.}} though the sheath skirts differed from 1950s sheath skirts in being unlined and worn without slips or girdles, revealing the pantylines of the models' 1970s-style pantyhose and underwear.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=25 Years of Cardin: Couture to Wine |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-10-31 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/31/archives/25-years-of-cardin-couture-to-wine.html?searchResultPosition=16 |quote=...the pencil slim shapes did not seem particularly appropriate for women who wore panty hose, not girdles.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=They Came Seeking Inspiration and Found It in Dior '75 |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-07-29 |page=43 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/29/archives/they-came-seeking-inspiration-and-discovered-it-in-dior-75.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=Blue jeans are one thing. Knitted, ribbed skirts that cup the derrière and show the outline of the mannequin's underpants are another.}} Shown by Cardin from 1970 to 1976, these vaguely retro-looking skin-tight, unlined skirts did not catch on during the casual, liberated early seventies, when restricting women's movements in tight skirts was considered regressive, but unlined sheath skirts would find favor in the early 1980s, most famously in the work of Azzedine Alaïa, as well as in the more slouchy tube skirts put out by London designers like BodyMap in the mid-1980s.

Many up-and-coming designers apprenticed with Cardin over the years, including Jean-Paul Gaultier in 1970.{{cite journal |last1=Gross |first1=Michael |title=Gaultier: Fashion Designed to Provoke |journal=The New York Times |date=1986-10-31 |page=A32 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/31/style/gaultier-fashion-designed-to-provoke.html?searchResultPosition=40 |quote='On my 18th birthday,' [Gaultier] recalled,... 'I received a call from Cardin. He said, "When can you work?" '...Although Cardin taught him that 'everything was possible,' he recalls, he was fired a year later...}}

In 1971, Cardin put more emphasis on miniskirts of innovative cut, many split at the sides,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Makes Styles Look Like Fun Again |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-01-27 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/27/archives/cardin-makes-styles-look-like-fun-again.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Cardin's minis look different from the ones that were around a year ago....Some are slippery satin dresses with bloused bodices and tiny pleated skirts. Some are flaring embroidered organdies...What makes them flare is the wide organdy bloomers underneath; the pleated skirts are over plain shorts. Not every dress bares half the thigh; the majority only show the knees. Many skirts are split up the sides like sandwich boards to show the now‐obligatory shorts underneath.}} and included short shorts with them as part of that year's hot pants trend,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Makes Styles Look Like Fun Again |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-01-27 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/27/archives/cardin-makes-styles-look-like-fun-again.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...[S]horts are under practically everything.}} while continuing to show longer lengths as well. Bare-armed, knee-length dresses with extended cap sleeves resembling shoulder flanges were notable, a style he would show through 1973.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Makes Styles Look Like Fun Again |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-01-27 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/27/archives/cardin-makes-styles-look-like-fun-again.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=One of his favorite ideas was a slender mid knee‐length dress with extended shoulders. The shoulder caps left the arms bare, but gave the broadened look across the top that is much in the air here.}} Some of his early seventies minidresses were in the form of tunics. Other tunic dresses in various lengths were shown for all hours, either alone or over trousers.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin and Valentino Collections – Today and Yesteryear |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-05-12 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/05/12/archives/cardin-and-valentino-collections-today-and-yesteryear.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=...[T]he collection moves on to tunics of any length — from well above the knees for day to ankle or floor length for evening. Some are the relatively sedate knee length. Most are split at the sides, many are curved at the bottom. Under them, you can wear...shorts or skinny pants or tights or flowered shirts.}}

HIs couture collections continued to feature geometric shapes, with clothes cut to form squares, circles, or triangles when the arms were held out to the sides.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin: One Foot in the Future, the Other Planted Firmly in Today |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-07-28 |page=40 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/28/archives/cardin-one-foot-in-future-the-other-planted-firmly-in-today.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=...[T]here are coats that form a perfect square when the arms are extended shoulder‐high, trousers that form a triangle, ponchos that curve like a parabola.}} In 1971, he adopted the motif of a circle at the end of a long, rectangular strip, a sort of geometric pendulum form that he would put at the ends of belts, sleeves, and pant legs.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Makes Styles Look Like Fun Again |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-01-27 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/27/archives/cardin-makes-styles-look-like-fun-again.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=Some of the dresses are sashed with belts that have a pendulum effect. The pendulum motif appears on coat sleeves and pants legs, too. It's part of the designer's continuing experimentation with geometric shapes and forms.}}

He met Soviet ballerina Maya Plisetskaya in 1971 at Avignon. She would become a friend and muse, wearing his clothes and inviting him to costume multiple productions.{{cite journal |last1=Kuprina |first1=Nadya |title=How Pierre Cardin Fell in Love with Soviet Russia |journal=Russia Beyond |date=2020-12-30 |url=https://www.rbth.com/arts/333239-pierre-cardin-ussr-russia |access-date=2025-06-06 |quote=Cardin met Plisetskaya at the Avignon theater festival during her 1971 tour of France, and went on to create costumes for many productions starring the prima donna, the most famous being the Bolshoi Theater’s legendary ballet interpretation of Anna Karenina. The ballerina also willingly modeled Cardin’s ensembles in everyday life.}}

File:Pierre Cardin et Régis Campo, Institut de France.jpg, from Académie des beaux-arts, Institut de France, Paris, 2017|alt=Pierre Cardin and the French composer Régis Campo, from Académie des beaux-arts, Institut de France, Paris, 2017]]

In 1971, Cardin redesigned the barong tagalog, a national costume of the Philippines, by opening the front, removing the cuffs that needed cufflinks, flaring the sleeves, and minimizing the embroidery. It was also tapered to the body, in contrast with the traditional loose-fitting design, and it also had a thicker collar with sharp and pointed cuffs. A straight-cut design was favored by President Ferdinand Marcos.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IBdpE-aUchkC&q=pierre+cardin+ferdinand+marcos&pg=PA31 |title=The Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas |page=31 |editor-last=Edwards |editor-first=Louise |editor2-last=Roces |editor2-first=Mina |publisher=Sussex Academic Press |year=2010 |isbn=9781845193997 }}{{Dead link|date=February 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

Other Cardin garments from 1971 were made with high, tight, constraining waistbands, some cinched, even on jeans, which was very out of step with the times.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=For Valentino and Cardin, Cinched Waistlines |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-12-02 |page=60 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/02/archives/for-valentino-and-cardin-cinched-waistlines.html?searchResultPosition=23 |quote=Everywhere you looked, there were tight, high waistlines. On trousers and skirts. In jersey and denim.}} Another indulgence of his that was considered anachronistic in the early to mid-seventies was big ballgowns, which Cardin produced from 1971 onward in taffetas and other traditionally dressy fabrics.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin: One Foot in the Future, the Other Planted Firmly in Today |journal=The New York Times |date=1971-07-28 |page=40 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/28/archives/cardin-one-foot-in-future-the-other-planted-firmly-in-today.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=...black velvet with starched white organdy sleeves...Cardin's ballgowns have tiny waistlines and big, romantic skirts...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Fashion Lapses: The Paris Shows Had Their Share |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-08-08 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/08/archives/fashion-lapses-the-paris-shows-had-their-share.html?searchResultPosition=19 |quote=Pierre Cardin, who used to do space‐age clothes, retreated to the age of gathers, drapes and ruffles.}} Fellow former Space Age designer André Courrèges also iconoclastically produced big ballgowns at the time,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Anyway, the Courreges Show Wasn't Dull |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-01-26 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/26/archives/anyway-the-courreges-show-wasnt-dull.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=The unmistakable [Courrèges] evening dresses had the biggest skirts since Scarlett O'Hara's and were reportedly held out by ruffles sewn underneath.}} a very casual period during which women might wear jeans and t-shirts even for important events.{{cite book |last1=Livingston |first1=Kathryn Zahony |title=World Book Year Book 1973: A Review of the Events of 1972 |publisher=Field Enterprises Educational Corporation |location=Chicago, Illinois, USA |isbn=0-7166-0473-6 |page=338 |chapter=Fashion |date=1973 |quote=An important aspect of being fashionable in 1972 was not to look as if one had spent either too much time or money on clothes....Female delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Miami...turned up in everything – floor-length dresses; tailored, short separates; faded blue jeans.}} Grand ballgowns of this type wouldn't return to mainstream fashion until the end of the seventies.

Some of Cardin's skirts starting in 1972, including miniskirts, had hoops, ranging from two or three widely separated hoops in the skirt of a minidress to multiple hoops very close together near the hem of an evening gown that moved up and down as the wearer walked. The point of these hoops seemed to be a particular kind of movement.{{cite journal |title=From French Ready-to-Wear, That Well-Groomed |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-04-24 |page=30 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/24/archives/from-french-ready-to-wear-that-wellgroomed-look.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=Cardin...has a dress all his own, with a hoop that jiggles...}} They were largely not the big, silhouette-enlarging hoops seen in the 1860s but hoops that stood out only a little from the slim lines of the skirt. Like his sheath skirts from the same time period, these never caught on among the comfort-conscious seventies public and they were confined to Cardin's runways, but he would continue to play with the idea into the 1980s, when designer Vivienne Westwood would receive attention for her wire-framed mid-eighties crinoline miniskirts.

Cardin's fashion shows, both couture and ready-to-wear, continued to contain many more garments than other designers' shows. As ready-to-wear came to outshine haute couture during the 1970s, Cardin was one of several designers who considered doing away with open couture shows entirely, nearly doing so in 1972 when he, Yves Saint Laurent, and a few others declared that they would stop presenting separate public couture shows for spring and instead show their couture lines with their ready-to-wear collections and then changed their minds.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Couture Alive, Pulse Fading |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-01-28 |page=68 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/28/archives/couture-alive-pulse-fading.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent... decided to boycott the traditional January couture shows. They agreed to present their collections in April, when the ready‐to‐wear houses show their lines.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin, At Least, Said Something New |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-07-29 |page=16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/29/archives/cardin-at-least-said-something-new.html?searchResultPosition=19 |quote=Three concerns tried to throw in their lot with ready to‐wear, but Robert Ricci, Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent reneged. When it came couture time, they ran up a few more styles and held couture shows.}}

In 1973, Cardin's backdrop at the joint French-US fashion show held at Versailles was a spaceship, while other designers chose bucolic or nostalgic scenes.{{cite journal |last1=Nemy |first1=Enid |title=Fashion at Versailles: French Were Good, Americans Were Great |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-11-30 |page=26 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/11/30/archives/fashion-at-versailles-french-were-good-americans-were-great-caps.html?searchResultPosition=29 |quote=Each designer's segment was...augmented by a float, generally in the shape of a carriage as pastoral as the background scenery (the Saint Laurent float was an elongated, old‐fashioned car; Cardin's background, a spaceship...)...}} He continued with some Space Age womenswear styles into 1974. By that date, the main vestiges of his Space Age looks were his jumper dresses over turtleneck-and-tights or bodystocking, a very versatile, serviceable way of dressing that fit the practical mood of the period.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=At the Paris Shows, Lots of Smoke but Not Much Fire |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-04-03 |page=38 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/03/archives/at-the-paris-shows-lots-of-smoke-but-not-much-fire.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=...Pierre Cardin's familiar space‐age look, with its spare jumpers and tunics tossed over ribbed black sweaters and tights, seemed absolutely refreshing.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Weinberg Enters the Sweater Sweepstakes |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-06-05 |page=32 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/05/archives/weinberg-enters-the-sweater-sweepstakes-fashion-talk.html?searchResultPosition=13 |quote=...[H]is most successful things...go back...to Cardin in his space‐age period: turtleneck sweaters under jumpers, good coats, little caps extending over the shoulders on sleeveless pullovers, big zippers down the front.}}

By 1973, the larger fashion industry had moved toward exclusively below-knee skirts, with calf lengths preferred. Cardin also featured skirts of that length,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris for Fall: Listless Start and Why Revive the 40's? |journal=The New York Times |date=1974-07-23 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/07/23/archives/paris-for-fall-listless-start-and-why-revive-the-40s-nice-start-bad.html?searchResultPosition=6 |quote=Pierre Cardin...started off...with ankle‐length skirts paired with skinny ribbed knitted tops.}} but he would also be one of very few designers, Courrèges most notably, to carry on including miniskirts in his collections even during their mid-seventies nadir.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Cardin Joins Miniskirt Parade |journal=The New York Times |date=1976-10-29 |page=46 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/29/archives/cardin-joins-miniskirt-parade.html?searchResultPosition=8 |quote=The clothes...are of the mini variety...crisp tutu-like skirts...When they aren't flaring out all around the body, the skirts tend to dip in handkerchief points...Often, it's tied up on one shoulder like a tiny toga. Ponchos with a hole for the head are another version....They're in such fabrics as eyelet, warp-printed cotton or chintz.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=At Paris Shows, the Latest Wrinkle in Haute Couture is Pleats |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-01-25 |page=45 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/01/25/archives/at-paris-shows-the-latest-wrinkle-in-haute-couture-is-pleats.html?searchResultPosition=39 |quote=The first hundred models at Pierre Cardin...danced around in minidresses....[H]is minidresses look a bit like abbreviated togas or Greek togas....[M]any end in handkerchief points.}}

In other designs, he did conform to some of the trends of the time, including more natural fibers; layering;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=A Touch of Derring-Do |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-05-17 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/17/archives/a-touch-of-derringdo.html?searchResultPosition=12 |quote=Coat sleeves rolled up to the elbow to show the tight-ribbed sleeves of the sweater beneath. Jacket sleeves roll up this way too.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=At Paris Shows, the Latest Wrinkle in Haute Couture is Pleats |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-01-25 |page=45 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/01/25/archives/at-paris-shows-the-latest-wrinkle-in-haute-couture-is-pleats.html?searchResultPosition=39 |quote=His more serious daytime clothes run to wool sleeveless vests over striped blouses and full skirts.}} fuller cuts;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Sets a Lively Pace |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-07-26 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/26/archives/paris-couture-sets-a-lively-pace.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=Everything was rather free and loose...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Fashion: Paris is Alive and Well, but Different |journal=The New York Times |date=1976-01-27 |page=46 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/01/27/archives/fashion-paris-is-alive-and-well-but-different.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Pierre Cardin's...loose jackets with the front ends folded back in a rippling, ruffled effect...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=At Paris Shows, the Latest Wrinkle in Haute Couture is Pleats |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-01-25 |page=45 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/01/25/archives/at-paris-shows-the-latest-wrinkle-in-haute-couture-is-pleats.html?searchResultPosition=39 |quote=Other suits have bloused jackets ending in wide hip bands.}} full, flounced, below-knee skirts of light fabrics;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Sets a Lively Pace |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-07-26 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/26/archives/paris-couture-sets-a-lively-pace.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=The bottoms were...dirndl skirts...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Openings: A Different Audience, New Emphasis |journal=The New York Times |date=1978-01-24 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/24/archives/paris-openings-a-different-audience-new-emphasis-still-some-frills.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=...[T]here were...dresses, loosely fitted and shaped...There...[were] a few made of billowing tiers.}} harem pants, harem skirts, and harem tops;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Fashion: Paris is Alive and Well, but Different |journal=The New York Times |date=1976-01-27 |page=46 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/01/27/archives/fashion-paris-is-alive-and-well-but-different.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...lots of bubble‐shaped tunics. Skirts are gathered under in a harem effect...[T]here are jumpsuits, elasticized at the ankles.}} and a variety of full trousers{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Fashion: Paris is Alive and Well, but Different |journal=The New York Times |date=1976-01-27 |page=46 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/01/27/archives/fashion-paris-is-alive-and-well-but-different.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=Pierre Cardin's...overalls, culottes or pantaloons...}} and tapered trousers;{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Sets a Lively Pace |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-07-26 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/26/archives/paris-couture-sets-a-lively-pace.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=The bottoms were loose but tapered pants...}} plus athletic gear like jogging outfits and tenniswear.{{cite journal |last1=Kifner |first1=John |title=Thump...Thump...Gasp...Sound of Joggers Increases in the Land |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-06-10 |page=24 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/10/archives/thump-thump-gaspsound-of-joggers-increases-in-the-land.html?searchResultPosition=3 |quote=...Pierre Cardin is now merchandising a running suit.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=At the Paris Shows, Lots of Smoke but Not Much Fire |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-04-03 |page=38 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/03/archives/at-the-paris-shows-lots-of-smoke-but-not-much-fire.html?searchResultPosition=7 |quote=Pierre Cardin's...collection...included...tennis dresses...}} Cardin's penchant for deep sleeve cuts,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=High Marks for Dior as Fall Collections Get Underway |journal=The New York Times |date=1976-07-27 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/27/archives/high-marks-for-dior-as-fall-collections-get-under-way.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Pierre Cardin...had a fondness for deep armholes...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=A Touch of Derring-Do |journal=The New York Times |date=1972-05-17 |page=36 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/17/archives/a-touch-of-derringdo.html?searchResultPosition=12 |quote=The sweater...with deep dolman sleeves and a high turtleneck that sticks out of collars.}} capes, and ponchos adapted well to the mid-seventies Big Look period, aside from some cape tops that immobilized the upper arms.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Sets a Lively Pace |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-07-26 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/26/archives/paris-couture-sets-a-lively-pace.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=...the cape tops that pinioned the arms to the sides.}} The voluminous shapes of mid-seventies high fashion included an emphasis on versatility, with designers producing dresses and other garments that could be wrapped, knotted, and tied in a variety of ways, tendencies Cardin also indulged in at the time.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Sets a Lively Pace |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-07-26 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/26/archives/paris-couture-sets-a-lively-pace.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=Big capes were wrapped and belted to become coats; small capes were tucked into belts or the edges were knotted....A long rectangle with a slot for the head was the kind of cape‐poncho that worked exceedingly well as the topping for dirndl skirts.}} He brought out innovative pieces that contained one pants leg and the rest of the garment a skirt, as well as overgarments that had a sleeve on one side and a cape on the other side that could be tied on the opposite shoulder over the single sleeve.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=High Marks for Dior as Fall Collections Get Underway |journal=The New York Times |date=1976-07-27 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/27/archives/high-marks-for-dior-as-fall-collections-get-under-way.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Pierre Cardin showed some dresses with one pants leg...[H]is one-armed coats...tie on the opposite side of his one-sleeved capes. }} He used his preferred ribknit for convertible necklines during this period.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=High Marks for Dior as Fall Collections Get Underway |journal=The New York Times |date=1976-07-27 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/27/archives/high-marks-for-dior-as-fall-collections-get-under-way.html?searchResultPosition=17 |quote=Evening dresses with rib‐knitted tops that can be pulled off the shoulder or made to cover one shoulder have possibilities.}}

He put his name on a line of infants' clothes in 1975.{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=Cardin for the Younger Set |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-08-13 |page=23 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/13/archives/cardin-for-the-younger-set.html?searchResultPosition=9 |quote=Piccolino, the children's house that is the French couturier's newest licensee, displayed the first American collection bearing the Cardin Enfant label. Meaning that mothers who are crazy to have the PC logo plastered all over their offspring will be able to outfit them completely—from sunglasses to belt buckles to booties (with the logo knitted into the soles) locally.}}

In 1975, Cardin opened his first furniture boutique on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. In 1977, 1979, and 1983, he was awarded the Cartier Golden Thimble by French haute couture for the most creative collection of the season.Längle (2005), pp. 199–200 He was a member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture et du Prêt-à-Porter from 1953 to 1993.{{cite web|title=Daring Geniuses: Pierre Cardin |url= https://fashionheritage.eu/daring-geniuses-pierre-cardin/ |date=28 August 2018 |access-date=9 April 2021 |website=fashionheritage.eu}}

In 1976, Cardin's position as most influential menswear designer began to be eclipsed by Giorgio Armani, who was just becoming a name among the fashion cognoscenti.{{cite journal |last1=La Ferla |first1=Ruth |title=Fashion: Sizing Up Giorgio Armani |journal=The New York Times |date=1990-10-21 |page=55 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/21/magazine/fashion-sizing-up-giorgio-armani.html |access-date=2021-12-10 |quote=[Armani's] career has been punctuated by a series of radical gestures, beginning with the unconstructed blazer of the mid-1970's – his epochal creation.}} Cardin's clothes by that time had followed the trends of the period and become more sedate. He was beginning to shorten his men's jackets, narrow lapels slightly, and broaden the shoulders, a direction that would continue until it became an industry trend at the end of the decade.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Men's Styles are Changing – But Revolution May Be Quiet |journal=The New York Times |date=1975-01-25 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/25/archives/fashion-talk-teens-styles-are-changing-but-revolution-may-be-quiet.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=...Pierre Cardin...has given up his space‐age look. Once his clothes were as full of zippers as an aviator's and seemed ready for a walk on the moon. The current crop could be worn by an insurance salesman to a meeting with a corporate executive....[T]he suits themselves are not alarming. The lapels are even somewhat reduced from the flaring ones that passed for mod....[T]he jackets are a smidgen shorter and they rarely have vents...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=For Today's Designers, Fashion Isn't Enough |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-10-26 |page=48 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/26/archives/for-todays-designers-fashion-isnt-enough.html?searchResultPosition=26 |quote=And now? Square shoulders, short jackets and not necessarily a shirt and tie — or even a T-shirt...}}

Cardin's first American-made, mass-produced home furnishing collection came in 1977 when Cardin partnered with Dillingham Manufacturing Company, Scandinavian Folklore Carpets of Denmark for Ege Rya Inc., and the Laurel Lamp Company.{{Cite news |last=Reif |first=Rita |date=1977-10-06 |title=Cardin's Furniture Debut Shimmering Chic |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/06/archives/westchester-opinion-cardins-furniture-debut-shimmering-chic.html |access-date=2023-02-09 |issn=0362-4331}}

In 1977, Cardin simplified and made more accessible the haute couture process by introducing "prêt-couture," off-the-rack hand-made clothes that customers could acquire with only one fitting and a price intermediate between his ready-to-wear and couture lines.{{cite book |last1=Mulvagh |first1=Jane |title=Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion |date=1988 |publisher=Viking, the Penguin Group |location=London, England |isbn=0-670-80172-0 |page=359 |chapter=1977 |quote=Cardin promoted a new idea this autumn, the 'prêt-couture,' a collection of hand-made clothes made in standard sizes. Potential customers had to pay to see them, but alterations, within reason, were on the house.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Sets a Lively Pace |journal=The New York Times |date=1977-07-26 |page=34 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/26/archives/paris-couture-sets-a-lively-pace.html?searchResultPosition=24 |quote=Cardin also introduced a new concept of clothes. He calls it pret‐a‐couture, which represents a marriage of pret‐a-porter (ready‐to‐wear) and couture or made‐to‐order clothes. The new order is a simplification of the couture. Instead of five or six fittings, there will be only one. Prices will also be simplified. Instead of S1,500 to $4,000, they will run $360 to $1,000.}}

For fall of 1978, much of the fashion industry moved away from voluminous, unconstructed, versatile shapes in womenswear and toward prominently padded shoulders and more tailored clothing in styles that were often derived from the 1940s, a tendency that was referred to as retro at the time. The retro emphasis included ideas of futuristic dress from the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, with Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers frequently mentioned,  most famously in the work of Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana.{{cite journal |last1=Duka |first1=John |title=Paris is Yesterday |journal=New York |date=1978-11-13 |volume=11 |issue=46 |pages=111–112 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-OACAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22france+andrevie%22+1978&pg=PA111 |access-date=2021-12-11 |quote=On the Flash Gordon side of French ready-to-wear Retro are such designers as Claude Montana, Thierry Mugler, and France Andrevie....At Montana, it took the form of...Italian fascist gone science-fiction fantasy....At Mugler,...a big-shouldered Flash Gordon jacket...}} This was not the minimalistic, intellectual Space Age look influenced by modern art that had prevailed in the 1960s in the work of Cardin and others but something older, consisting of shoulder flanges and trapunto-stitched jumpsuits. Some of Cardin's work from this big-shoulders period would contribute to this retro-futuristic mode.{{cite journal |last1=Fraser |first1=John |title=Comrade Chic |journal=Washington Post |date=1979-03-20 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/03/20/comrade-chic/e237b052-6ac9-43b0-a477-2d07897329b0/ |access-date=2022-05-07 |quote=...[Pierre Cardin's] space-age shoulder pads...}} His tailoring expertise and preference for bold silhouettes fit into the renewed emphasis on structure and he received increased press attention for his clothes, his shoulders some of the broadest in Paris and his suits some of the most severely tailored.{{cite journal |last1=Hyde |first1=Nina S. |title=Pierre Cardin |journal=The New York Times |date=1978-09-10 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/09/11/pierre-cardin/34d98f09-548d-4292-bc89-1fb5cd3eb259/ |quote=Suddenly he is out of his chair and starts 'designing' a dress on a visitor. He slides an ashtray under the shoulder to show a changed shape...}}{{cite book |last1=Larkin |first1=Kathy |title=1979 Collier's Yearbook Covering the Year 1978 |date=1979 |publisher=Crowell-Collier Publishing Company |page=250 |chapter=Fashion |quote=...[A] wide-shouldered coat by Pierre Cardin, being cinched tight...by the designer himself, to emphasize that shapelessness had become quite passé.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Opens with Bow to Past |journal=The Washington Post |date=1978-07-25 |page=C2 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/25/archives/paris-couture-opens-with-bow-to-the-past-a-narrow-silhouette.html?searchResultPosition=23 |quote=Cardin padded some of his shoulders so sharply they looked as if they could cut...}}

In 1979, Cardin was appointed a consultant to China's agency for trade in textiles,{{cite journal |last1=Prial |first1=Frank J. |author-link=Frank J. Prial |title=China Names Cardin as Fashion Consultant |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-01-08 |page=D2 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/08/archives/business-people-china-names-cardin-as-fashion-consultant-pattison.html |access-date=2023-11-14 |quote=Pierre Cardin...said in Paris that the Chinese Government had named him as a consultant to its textile‐trade agency. Under the agreement with Peking, Mr. Cardin will advise the Chinese on how to style their textile products to make them more marketable in the West.}}{{cite book |last1=Hendelson |first1=Marion |title=Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia 1980 Yearbook: Events of 1979 |publisher=Funk & Wagnalls, Inc. |location=New York, USA |isbn=0-8343-0034-6 |page=166 |chapter=Fashion |date=1980 |quote=Pierre Cardin of Paris was made fashion advisor to the Chinese government in 1979.}} and in March of that year, he became the first Western designer to present a fashion show in China in many decades.{{cite journal |title=Cardin Shows Haute Couture Designs in China |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-03-19 |page=C5 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/20/archives/cardin-shows-haute-couture-designs-in-china.html |access-date=2023-11-14 |quote=Pierre Cardin today gave the Chinese their first taste of haute couture in decades when he showed off his collections of spring and summer fashions for women and fall clothes for men.}}

In early 1979, Cardin contributed pagoda shoulders to the fashion lexicon.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Couture Enhances the Past |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-02-06 |page=C5 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/06/archives/paris-couture-enhances-the-past-couture-has-the-right-a-chinese.html?searchResultPosition=10 |quote=Pierre Cardin turns up the outer edges of his padded shoulders in a pagoda-like flip...}} These may have been influenced by his increased trips to China over the previous year.{{cite journal |last1=Schiro |first1=Anne-Marie |title=Notes on Fashion |journal=The New York Times |date=1985-03-12 |page=A28 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/style/notes-on-fashion.html |quote=The idea came, he said, from a trip to China. 'I saw the roofs that go up at the ends rather than down,' he said...}} The look would influence other designers for fall of 1979, as many sharpened the edges of their shoulder pads and sometimes turned them up,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Paris Fashions Unveiled in Super Bowl Style |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-04-09 |page=D8 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/09/archives/paris-fashions-unveiled-in-super-bowl-style.html?searchResultPosition=16 |quote=What the shows also had in common was an emphasis on extended, pinched‐up shoulders somewhat like the pagoda line Pierre Cardin showed in his last couture collection and took to China recently.}} most notably Claude Montana.{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Angela |title=Claude Montana's Space-Age Styles Touch Down on West 54th Street |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-09-07 |page=A16 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/07/archives/claude-montanas-spaceage-styles-touch-down-on-west-54th-street.html |access-date=2021-12-18 |quote=[Montana's] shoulders...turned up at the ends, like pagoda roofs.}} Like Montana,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=In Paris, High Fashion's Latest Trip is to Outer Space |journal=The New York Times |date=15 October 1979 |page=B14 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/15/archives/in-paris-high-fashions-latest-trip-is-to-outer-space-a-fashionable.html |access-date=17 May 2023 |quote=Claude Montana...shoulders extended half a foot on each side by padding and huge shelflike sleeves...}} Cardin would present some of the largest shoulders in the industry into the mid-1980s,{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Couture Forecasts Shape of Clothes to Come |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-07-31 |page=C5 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/31/archives/couture-forecasts-shape-of-clothes-to-come-chemise-is-the.html?searchResultPosition=30 |quote=Pierre Cardin probably has the widest, squarest shoulders in town.}}{{cite journal |title=Cardin Shows Haute Couture Designs in China |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-03-20 |page=C5 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/20/archives/cardin-shows-haute-couture-designs-in-china.html |access-date=2023-11-14 |quote=...[Viewers] stared in amazement at the oversized shoulders on Cardin's new creations. 'These styles are Superman styles,' Cardin said of the big, wide shoulders...}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Couture Comes Alive as Fall Showings Open |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-07-24 |page=C10 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/24/archives/couture-comes-alive-as-fall-showings-open-princess-caroline.html?searchResultPosition=18 |quote=Pierre Cardin's...shoulders can be monstrous...}} but Cardin only focused on pagoda shoulders for a brief period in 1979,{{cite news |last1=Hyde |first1=Nina S. |author-link=Nina Hyde |title=Fashion From Paris |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=1979-10-21 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/10/21/fashion-from-paris/ccf4fb87-660d-403b-82c4-30fecc17b63b/ |access-date=2021-12-19 |quote=...[B]ig pagoda shoulders...were [Cardin's] favorite silhouette...last March.}}{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Couture Comes Alive as Fall Showings Open |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-07-24 |page=C10 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/24/archives/couture-comes-alive-as-fall-showings-open-princess-caroline.html?searchResultPosition=18 |quote=Pierre Cardin's upturned pagoda shoulders of last season have now acquired a squared‐off shape....His squared-off shoulders often top squared‐off sleeves, box-shaped instead of rounded...}} when he put them in his menswear as well as his womenswear.{{cite web |last1=Machalaba |first1=Nick |title=Exclusive Archival Images from DNR [Daily News Record]: European Menswear |url=https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/gallery/exclusive-archival-images-from-dnr-european-menswear-featuring-gianni-versace-and-more-1234899651/dnr-european-menswear-31/ |website=Women's Wear Daily |date=17 August 2021 |publisher=Fairchild Media |access-date=2021-12-18 |quote=A model poses in Pierre Cardin’s double-breasted suit with pagoda shoulders during the French men’s wear designer fashion show in New York on Oct. 8, 1979.}} Despite their brief tenure and limited public adoption, pagoda shoulders would be one of Cardin's most referenced styles in later decades.

His menswear of the last two years of the seventies reached the apogee of the increased shoulder width direction he was already headed in the mid-seventies, with shoulders broadened with padding, narrower lapels to increase the impression of shoulder width, and tapered jacket shapes.{{cite journal |last1=Alexander |first1=Ron |title=Putting Men's Fashion Back on the Soft and Narrow |journal=The New York Times |date=1978-02-11 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/02/11/archives/putting-mens-fashions-back-on-the-soft-and-narrow-drape-comes-back.html?searchResultPosition=4 |quote=...a 'triangular look': the shoulders are broad, though they now roll off gently, and the jacket is shaped with a lot of drape. In addition, Cardin has reduced the width of his jacket lapels from four inches to three and one‐half inches.}}{{cite journal |last1=Alexander |first1=Ron |title=Shoulder It, Men: Padding is Back |journal=The New York Times |date=1979-09-16 |page=CN21 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/16/archives/connecticut-weekly-shoulder-it-men-padding-is-back-american.html?searchResultPosition=29 |access-date=2022-04-04 |quote=Pierre Cardin refers to his new suit silhouette as 'an upside‐down triangle.' He also calls it 'The Concorde.' What this all means is that he is designing clothes with broader shoulders and cutting back lapel widths to make the shoulders more pronounced on single-breasted and double‐breasted jackets. The lapels taper as they approach the waistline and the jacket bottoms are close‐fitting.}}

In 1981, Cardin acquired Maxim's.{{Cite news |last1=Prial |first1=Frank J. |date=1981-05-06 |title=Maxim's, The Paris Restaurant, Is Sold To Cardin Enterprises |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/06/garden/maxim-s-the-paris-restaurant-is-sold-to-cardin-enterprises.html |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=2 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220602032416/https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/06/garden/maxim-s-the-paris-restaurant-is-sold-to-cardin-enterprises.html |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=History of Maxim's de Paris Restaurant |url=https://www.eutouring.com/history_maxims_de_paris_restaurant.html |access-date=2025-02-20 |website=www.eutouring.com}} He introduced Maxim's to Beijing in 1983, where it was among the first international brands to operate in mainland China and became an enduring cultural landmark.{{Cite book |last=Lake |first=Roseann |title=Leftover in China: the Women Shaping the World's Next Superpower |date=2018 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated |isbn=978-0-393-25463-1 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=160–161}}

Like many other designers today, Cardin decided in 1994 to show his collection only to a small circle of selected clients and journalists. After a break of 15 years, he showed a new collection to a group of 150 journalists at his bubble home in Cannes.

A biography titled Pierre Cardin, his fabulous destiny was written by Sylvana Lorenz.{{cite book |last=Lorenz |first=Sylvana |title=Pierre Cardin: son fabuleux destin |date=2006 |publisher=Editions No 1 |location=Paris |isbn=9782846121910 |language=fr}}

A documentary on Cardin's life and career, House of Cardin directed by P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes premiered to a standing ovation on 6 September 2019 at the 76th Venice International Film Festival in the Giornate degli Autori section, with Mr. Cardin in attendance.{{cite news|last=Zargani|first=Luisa |date=6 September 2019 |title=Pierre Cardin Documentary Screened at Venice Film Festival |language=en-US |newspaper=Women's Wear Daily|url= https://wwd.com/eye/people/pierre-cardin-documentary-screened-venice-film-festival-1203258400/ |access-date=9 October 2022}}

Cardin had several muses who inspired his designs over the years, including model Hiroko Matsumoto, actress Jeanne Moreau, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, and ballerina Maya Plisetskaya.

{{main|Pierre Cardin (brand)}}

Pierre Cardin used his name as a brand, initially a prestigious fashion brand, then in the 1960s extended successfully into perfumes and cosmetics, added furniture and home decor in 1968,{{cite journal |last1=Emerson |first1=Gloria |title=The Spring and Summer Look a la Cardin, Givenchy and Gres |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-02-01 |page=18 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/02/01/archives/the-spring-and-summer-look-a-la-cardin-givenchy-and-gres.html?searchResultPosition=2 |quote=There's a new Cardin-owned boutique for home furnishings...called Environnement that opened at the end of December [1968].}} and acquired new products for licensure rapidly during the 1970s.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=For Today's Designers, Fashion Isn't Enough |journal=The New York Times |date=1973-10-26 |page=48 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/26/archives/for-todays-designers-fashion-isnt-enough.html?searchResultPosition=26 |quote=There are 280 licensees for Cardin products in 34 countries, the designer said the other day....Mr. Cardin, who started as a woman's couturier in Paris, has also tried his hand at car interiors (the French Simca and the American Javelin) as well as belts and watches.}} By the late 1970s, his name could be found on over 2,000 products, ranging from bicycle accessories to wine to cookware to home furnishings to heaters to blow dryers.{{cite journal |last1=McEvoy |first1=Marian |title=Paris Preview |journal=The New York Times |date=1978-01-22 |page=SM12 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/01/22/archives/fashion-preview-paris-preview-paris.html?searchResultPosition=1 |quote=His empire now includes more than 350 separate license programs for more than 2,000 separate products. Cardin's hasty signature can be found on heating radiators, tie clips, wine bottles, bicycle pumps, flatware, stoves, hair dryers, desk sets, lamps, chairs and casseroles. His products are now distributed in more than 120 countries.}} He would continue to add licensees during the following decade.{{cite journal |last1=Morris |first1=Bernadine |title=Couture: Styles of Splendor |journal=The New York Times |date=1981-08-04 |page=C6 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/04/style/couture-styles-of-splendor.html?searchResultPosition=18 |quote=Pierre Cardin...has some 500 licensees throughout the world...}}{{cite journal |last1=Donovan |first1=Carrie |title=The Swagger of Christian Lacroix |journal=The New York Times |date=1987-09-26 |page=23 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/06/magazine/the-swagger-of-christian-lacroix.html?searchResultPosition=22 |quote=Pierre Cardin, the French designer, has perhaps more licensees than anyone else, about 800 of them. Their sales, of $1 billion a year wholesale, earn him personally about $80 million a year.}} From about 1988 the brand was licensed extensively, and appeared on "wildly nonadjacent products such as baseball caps and cigarettes".{{cite journal|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1J2QAAAAIAAJ&q=reddy|title=How Not to Extend Your Luxury Brand |first1=Mergen|last1=Reddy|first2=Nic|last2=Terblanche|journal=Harvard Business Review |year=2005 |volume=83 |page=20}}

File:Pierre_Cardin_ball_pens.jpg

A 2005 article in the Harvard Business Review commented that the extension into perfumes and cosmetics was successful as the premium nature of the Pierre Cardin brand transferred well into these new, adjacent categories, but that the owners of the brand mistakenly attributed this to the brand's strength rather than to its fit with the new product categories. The extensive licensing eroded the high-end perception of the brand, but was lucrative; in 1986 Women's Wear Daily (WWD) estimated Cardin's annual income at over US$10 million.

In 1995, quotes from WWD included "Pierre Cardin—he has sold his name for toilet paper. At what point do you lose your identity?" and "Cardin's cachet crashed when his name appeared on everything from key chains to pencil holders". However, the Cardin name was still very profitable, although the indiscriminate licensing approach was considered a failure.{{cite web |url= http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/11/23/digging-deeper-pierre-cardin/ |title=Digging Deeper – Pierre Cardin's Demise to "Licensing King" |website=Highsnobiety.com |first=Jason |last=Dike |date=23 November 2015|access-date=6 May 2017}}

In 2011, Cardin tried to sell his business, valuing it at €1 billion, although the Wall Street Journal considered it to be worth about a fifth of that amount. Ultimately he did not sell the brand.

File:1972 AMC Javelin with Pierre Cardin interior.JPG|alt=Cardin interior in a 1972 AMC Javelin]]

Cardin entered industrial design by developing thirteen basic design "themes" that would be applied to various products, each consistently recognizable and carrying his name and logo. He expanded into new markets that "to most Paris fashion designers ... is rank heresy."{{cite journal|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=_6EiAQAAMAAJ |page=44 |title=Pierre Cardin Goes Industrial |journal=Business Week |year=1972 |access-date=7 August 2012 }}

The business initiatives included a contract with American Motors Corporation (AMC). Following the success of the Aldo Gucci designed Hornet Sportabout station wagon interiors, the automaker incorporated Cardin's theme on the AMC Javelin starting in mid-1972.{{cite journal|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=u-YCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA45 |page=45 |journal=New York Magazine |date=20 March 1972 |title=Introducing the Cardin Javelin |access-date=7 August 2012 |publisher=New York Media }} This was one of the first American cars to offer a special trim package created by a famous French fashion designer. It was daring and outlandish design "with some of the wildest fabrics and patterns ever seen in any American car".{{cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Larry G. |title=AMC Muscle Cars |publisher=MotorBooks/MBI Publishing |year=2000 |pages=55–56 |isbn=978-0-7603-0761-8 }}

The original sales estimate by AMC was for 2,500 haute couture "pony" and muscle cars.{{cite book |last=Mays |first=James C. |title=The Savvy Guide to Buying Collector Cars at Auction |publisher=Indy-Tech Publishing |year=2006 |page=[https://archive.org/details/savvyguidetobuyi0000mays/page/28 28] |isbn=978-0-7906-1322-2 |url= https://archive.org/details/savvyguidetobuyi0000mays/page/28 }} The special interior option was continued on the 1973 model year Javelins.{{cite journal|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=VNQDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA119 |page=119 |last=Lamm |first=Michael |title=AMC: Hornet hatchback leads the lineup |journal=Popular Mechanics |volume=138 |issue=4 |date=October 1972 |access-date=7 August 2012 }} During the two model years, a total of 4,152 AMC Javelins received this bold mirrored, multi-colored pleated stripe pattern in tones of Chinese red, plum, white, and silver that were set against a black background.{{cite book |url= https://archive.org/details/carsofamericanmo0000cran/page/112 |url-access=registration |title=The Cars of American Motors: An Illustrated History |first=Marc |last=Cranswick |publisher=McFarland |year=2012 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/carsofamericanmo0000cran/page/112 112, 125, 247] |isbn=978-0-7864-4672-8}} The Cardin Javelins also came with the designer's emblems on the front fenders and had a limited selection of exterior colors (Trans Am Red, Snow White, Stardust Silver, Diamond Blue, and Wild Plum) to coordinate with the special interiors.{{cite journal |last=Foster |first=Patrick |title=Pierre Cardin Meets the Javelin |journal=Hemmings Classic Car |number=31 |date=April 2007 }} However, 12 Cardin optioned cars were special ordered in Midnight Black paint.

Prior to working with AMC, Cardin collaborated with French automaker Simca to produce a Cardin edition of the Simca 1100, released in 1969 for the 1970 model year.{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Marylin |title=Maxi? To Cardin, C'est Bon |journal=The New York Times |date=1969-10-14 |page=42 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1969/10/14/archives/maxi-to-cardin-cest-bon.html?searchResultPosition=5 |quote=A Simca with a Cardin-designed interior was presented at the auto show in Paris last month. Next year, he will try designing a whole car.}}

File:Pierre Cardin-Sculptures Utilitaires-Cobra Table and Chair.jpg

Cardin owned a palazzo in Venice named Ca' Bragadin.{{cite web |url= https://www.azureazure.com/homes/architecture-design/pierre-cardins-magnificent-new-building-in-venice/ |last=Remos |first=Ana B. |title=Pierre Cardin's Magnificent New Building in Venice |date=16 April 2013 |work=Azureazure |access-date=22 March 2021}} Although he claimed that this house was once owned by Giacomo Casanova, some scholars have argued that it was owned by another branch of the Bragadin family, and that its usage by Casanova was "somewhat unlikely".{{cite journal |last1=Perrottet |first1=Tony |title=Who Was Casanova? |url= https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/who-was-casanova-160003650/ |journal=Smithsonian Magazine |access-date=31 December 2020 |language=en |date=April 2012}}

Cardin self-identified as being mostly gay,{{cite web|url= https://madame.lefigaro.fr/style/pierre-cardin-le-createur-entrepreneur-qui-inspire-les-jeunes-310317-130768 |title=Pierre Cardin, le créateur entrepreneur qui inspire les jeunes |date=6 July 2017 |author=Hélène Guillaume |website=Madame Figaro |language=fr |access-date=29 December 2020}} but in the 1960s he had a four-year relationship with actress Jeanne Moreau.{{cite web|url= https://amomama.fr/26129-jeanne-moreau-a-eu-beaucoup-damants-mais-le-difficile-etait-pierre-cardin-ou.html |title=Jeanne Moreau: relation amoureuse difficile de 4 ans avec Pierre Cardin, ouvertement gay |date=24 June 2020 |author=Michael Markus Mvondo |website=amomama.fr |language=fr |access-date=29 December 2020}} His long-term business partner and life partner was fellow French fashion designer André Oliver, who died in 1993.{{cite news |last1=Mendes |first1=Valerie D. |title=Obituary: Andre Oliver |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-andre-oliver-1457922.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-andre-oliver-1457922.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=29 December 2020 |work=The Independent |date=23 October 2011}}{{cite news |last1=Horwell |first1=Veronica |title=Pierre Cardin obituary |url= https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/dec/29/pierre-cardin-obituary |access-date=29 December 2020 |work=The Guardian |date=29 December 2020}}

Cardin died on 29 December 2020,{{cite news|date=29 December 2020 |title=Pierre Cardin: French fashion giant dies aged 98 |language=en-GB |work=BBC News|url= https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55476062 |access-date=9 April 2021}} at the American Hospital of Paris, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, at the age of 98.{{cite web|url= https://www.bfmtv.com/people/mode/le-couturier-francais-pierre-cardin-est-mort_AD-202012290119.html |title=Le couturier français Pierre Cardin est mort |work=BFMTV |date=29 December 2020 |access-date=9 April 2021}} No cause of death was given.{{cite news|last=Ferla|first=Ruth La |date=29 December 2020 |title=Pierre Cardin, Designer to the Famous and Merchant to the Masses, Dies at 98 |language=en-US |newspaper=The New York Times|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/style/pierre-cardin-dead.html |access-date=9 April 2021}}

• France: Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (February 1983)
• France: Commander of the National Order of Merit (May 1985)
• Italy: Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (23 September 1987;{{cite web|url= https://www.quirinale.it/onorificenze/insigniti/246642 |title=Cardin Sig. Pierre |website=quirinale.it|language=it |access-date=29 December 2020}} Commander: 2 June 1976{{cite web|url= https://www.quirinale.it/onorificenze/insigniti/295522 |title=Cardin Sig. Pierre|website=quirinale.it|language=it |access-date=30 December 2020}})
• Japan: Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star (May 1991)
• France: Commander of the Legion of Honour (January 1997; Officer: April 1991; Knight: April 1983)
• Belarus: Order of Francysk Skaryna (7 January 2004)
• Monaco: Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit (2007){{cite web |url=https://www.legimonaco.mc/Dataweb/jourmon.nsf/100ab120e52ceb84c12568ce002f2909/047dff856b8a8e25c125739c004969cc/%24FILE/JO7835%20m%C3%A9dailles9.pdf |title=Ordonnances Souveraines (Décorations) N° 7835 |date=18 November 2007 |author=Gouvernement de Monaco |website=legimonaco.mc |language=fr |access-date=4 July 2019 |archive-date=4 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190704080108/https://www.legimonaco.mc/Dataweb/jourmon.nsf/100ab120e52ceb84c12568ce002f2909/047dff856b8a8e25c125739c004969cc/$FILE/JO7835%2520m%25C3%25A9dailles9.pdf |url-status=dead }}
• Russia: Order of Friendship (24 June 2014){{cite web|url= https://pierrecardin.com/wp-content/themes/pc/res/pdf/bio-pierre-cardin-EN.pdf |title=Pierre Cardin Biography |date=2020 |website=pierrecardin.com |language=en |access-date=29 December 2020}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist}}

• {{Cite book|first=Ernestine|last=Carter|author-link=Ernestine Carter|title=Magic Names of Fashion |year=1980 |publisher=Prentice Hall |isbn=0-13-545426-3 |oclc=7017601|pages=122–127}}
• {{cite book|first=Sylvana|last=Lorenz|author-link=Sylvana Lorenz|title=Biographie de Pierre Cardin |location=Paris |publisher=Calmann-Lévy |date=2006 |language=fr}}
• {{Cite book|first=Jean-Pierre|last=Thiollet|author-link=Jean-Pierre Thiollet|title="Pierre Cardin", in Hallier L'Edernel retour |year=2021 |location=Paris |publisher=Neva Editions |isbn=978-2-35055-295-8 |pages=253–270}}

{{Commons category|Pierre Cardin}}

• [https://pierrecardin.com/en/ Official website]
• [http://www.fascineshion.com/en/exhibition/pierre-cardin-museum/318/ Pierre Cardin Museum]
• {{Discogs artist}}

{{Fountain pen manufacturers}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cardin, Pierre}}

Category:1922 births

Category:2020 deaths

Category:Naturalized citizens of France

Category:French businesspeople in fashion

Category:French fashion designers

Category:Commanders of the Order of Cultural Merit (Monaco)

Category:Fashion accessory brands

Category:Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Arts

Category:High fashion brands

Category:Italian emigrants to France

Category:LGBTQ fashion designers

Category:Italian LGBTQ businesspeople

Category:Italian gay artists

Category:French LGBTQ businesspeople

Category:French gay artists

Category:Eyewear brands of France

Category:Members of the Académie des beaux-arts

Category:Menswear designers

Category:Recipients of the Order of Francysk Skaryna

Category:Dior people

Category:People from the Province of Treviso

Category:Red Cross personnel

Category:FAO goodwill ambassadors

Category:Gay businessmen

Category:20th-century French businesspeople

Category:21st-century French businesspeople

Category:UNESCO goodwill ambassadors