Pierre Cardin, the visionary designer who clothed the elite but also transformed the business of fashion, reaching the masses by affixing his name to an outpouring of merchandise ranging from off-the-rack apparel to bath towels, has died in France. He was 98.
His death was confirmed Tuesday by the French Academy of Fine Arts. He died at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, just outside Paris, his family said, according to Agence France-Presse.
"Fashion is not enough,” Cardin once told Eugenia Sheppard, the American newspaper columnist and fashion critic. "I don’t want to be just a designer.”