Jean-Paul Gaultier is just 18 years old, for years he has known that he wants to work in fashion, he devours magazines, doodles, designs collections that he sends to couturiers in the Place de Paris.
Too much this for Dior, not enough that for Saint-Laurent, but Pierre Cardin, himself, is seduced.
It was at his side that Jean-Paul Gaultier made his debut in the profession in the early 1970s. He discovered in the couturier's workshops a universe of creation in all directions and immense freedom.
Who was Pierre Cardin for you?
JEAN PAUL GAULTIER.
Someone who was always in action, creating, inventing, finding ideas, with enormous curiosity.
He was trying to meet the needs of the time… He was very attentive to what was happening in the world, to changes in society.
He was at the same time a businessman, an ambassador of France, a couturier, a cutter, an editor, the little hand and the big hand, all at the same time, a manager.
But above all, he was a free person and always the first in many things.
A visionary ?
Totally.
He was the first to make ready-to-wear… It was very frowned upon at the time, distribution was something vulgar, whereas now all fashion houses only live by ready-to-wear. wear, perfumes and accessories.
The first show that I saw at Espace Pierre-Cardin, I distributed the numbers to the models who held them in their hands while parading.
Just before, he went on stage to say that he designed this collection thinking of the woman who will go to the moon… It was insane, like a show, to music by contemporary composer Pierre Henry.
He already had the notion of the show parade.
Couturier, designer, ambassador of France, academician, patron, throughout his life, Pierre Cardin has carried out a fine work.
Thank you, Monsieur Cardin, for opening the doors to fashion and for making my dream possible ... #PierreCardin pic.twitter.com/GeworJSsuA
- Jean Paul Gaultier (@JPGaultier) December 29, 2020
Would you say Cardin played an important role in your life?
Totally.
I wanted to do this job, I looked in magazines, I read and I designed collections that I sent to all the designers.
On my 18th birthday, my mother received a call from the Pierre Cardin house saying that he wanted to see me.
I went with her, I was too intimidated to go alone.
He asked me if I was available.
In fact, no, or part time, I was still in school.
He accepted.
He chose me without my having gone to school… My school was the real job, with him, to watch him do it…
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And what did you learn?
He showed me the freedom to create, to express myself, to touch on lots of areas even at the risk of being criticized.
For him, I was able to design hallucinating glasses that he had made although impossible to wear… Everything was allowed with him and that showed me that anything was possible.
I learned this freedom.
For me it was normal, I only saw that, I knew and saw then, that it was not at all the same in others.
Pierre Cardin's spring-summer fashion show on April 1, 2012 in Beijing.
AFP / Mark Ralston
He was an all-round creator ...
Yes, he created whatever he wanted to create.
And he was still working at his age, because he had this real love of doing.
It was his life, really, let's say he died on stage.
He was an extraordinary person who made a deep impression on me.
I realize, sometimes, that there are things that I have considered, or that I have achieved and that I owe him because he did not forbid himself anything.
And that he passed this on to me.
I find fashion people have a kind of ingratitude sometimes, because what is no longer in fashion is out of fashion, without recognizing what people have brought.
Pierre Cardin was out of fashion, he invented things, had immense curiosity and contributed a lot.
He was a great man whom I had the chance to meet and with whom, above all, I had the chance to start working ...