Posted December 29, 2020 6:08 p.m. EST
Updated December 29, 2020 6:12 p.m. EST
By Ruth La Ferla, New York Times
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, died on Tuesday in Neuilly-sur-Seine, just outside Paris. He was 98.
His death, at the American Hospital there, was confirmed Tuesday by the French Academy of Fine Arts. No cause was given.
“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.”