At 97 years old, French couturier Pierre Cardin is still one of the greatest masters of fashion in history. He was considered light years ahead of his time when he was in prime during the '50s and '60s, but he had both a vision and execution. The designer was known for his futuristic concepts, even at one point in his career being referenced in the futuristic Hanna Barbara cartoon The Jestons. This summer, he has been honored by the Brooklyn Museum with an exhibit, Pierre Cardin: Future Fashion. 

The exhibit traces the designer’s careers, showcasing his most innovative designs, and how he was a driving force in democratizing fashion for the masses and pushing the boundaries of the industry. The exhibit was curated by Matthew Yokobosky, senior curator, fashion and material culture, at the Brooklyn Museum. Yokobosky first became interested in Pierre Cardin in 2014 when he was working at the museum and he saw an old video of Jean-Paul Gaultier working at Pierre Cardin. He didn’t know until that point that Gaultier had started at Pierre Cardin.

Pierre Cardin would go on to have an exhibit in Newport, then another exhibit in Atlanta, and when Yokobosky got back from visiting these he wrote a long description to the director of the Brooklyn Museum who replied in all capital letters, “PIERRE CARDIN, YES!” From there, Yokobosky began making the show. 

The exhibit coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Yokobosky took eight months to curate and design this exhibit, in addition to creating a book to accompany it. The hardest part of curating the exhibit for him was editing down. “You know, he’s worked for 70 years, and to have 70 years of work and have an archive of that much work was a lot to go through,” Yokobosky said. “There were a lot of hard choices, because there were a lot of different directions you could take through this material. You have to hit the high points, but then of course you want to introduce new things that people aren’t familiar with. There were things I found particularly interesting, like the kinetic dresses, in which the women could turn in the clothing and they’d look like a sculpture. That was what guided the selection of the work, that it was going to be chronological, hit the high points, but also surprise.”

The exhibit features more than 170 pieces dating from the 1950s to today, including haute couture, accessories, and furniture. In the 1958 when Cardin began doing ready-to-wear it was considered a gamble at the time, as some saw it as cheapening his fashion house, but it worked out in his favor and grew his audience. Cardin was also the first designer to license his name, and is considered the father of logomania, as his stipulation for all licensing was that his name had to appear somewhere on the product.