French fashion designer Pierre Cardin acknowledges the crowd at the end of a show at the Institut de France, on Nov. 30, 2016 in Paris. (Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP via Getty Images) PARIS - French fashion designer Pierre Cardin possessed a wildly inventive artistic sensibility tempered by a stiff dose of business sense.
He had no problem acknowledging that he earned more from a pair of stockings than from a haute-couture gown with a six-figure price tag.Cardin, who died Tuesday at age 98, was the ultimate entrepreneurial designer.
He understood the importance his exclusive haute couture shows played in stoking consumer desire and became an early pioneer of licensing.