He died in hospital in Neuilly, near Paris, his family told the AFP news agency.
“It is a day of great sadness for all our family. Pierre Cardin is no more,” they said in a statement. “We are all proud of his tenacious ambition and the daring he has shown throughout his life.”
After the news was announced, his official Instagram account posted one of his quotes: “I have always worked in my own style, which is different from all others. It was always my intention to be different, because that is the only way to last.”
The fashion world paid tribute, with fellow French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier thanking him for “opening the doors to fashion and for making my dream possible”.
Benetton artistic director Jean-Charles de Castelbajac said Cardin was an “a very extraordinary man” who did not set borders between fashion, design or architecture.
He told AFP that “his inspiration boosted my imagination”, and that for Cardin, the marketing and promotion of his art “was as important as the art itself”.
Photographer and former model Nigel Barker tweeted : “We have lost a legend… Fashion Designer Pierre Cardin who revolutionized the industry with his futuristic designs and think outside of the box business approach has passed away today.”
The son of Italian immigrants worked with luminaries such as filmmaker Jean Cocteau and designer Christian Dior before launching his own fashion house, drawing on his love for futuristic design.
Cardin was known for his forward-thinking designs, helping shape what we now see as space-age aesthetics: Clean, curved lines. Bold, beautiful colors contrasted with black tights and leggings. Helmets, visors and experimental materials that exuded both a sense of adventure and a knowing playfulness.
Pierre was expelled from the rarified guild of French fashion designers. A year later, however, he was showing his first ready-to-wear menswear, a cutting edge collection that included those Nehru-style collarless jackets (an adaptation of the type worn by the Indian prime minister) sold at his Adam boutique, which would go on to inspire the likes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
In 1959, Cardin released a mass-produced ready-to-wear collection with the French department store Printemps. While common today, it was a bold move back then — one that got Cardin kicked out of the small syndicate of haute couture designers. But Cardin had his eye toward getting the world to know his name.
In the 1960s, Cardin’s simple, high-collared suits were a hit with the Beatles. It was one of many ways his work extended past fashion-show runways — he also designed uniforms for nurses and for Pakistan International Airlines.
In 1969, in a career high, Nasa commissioned him to create a spacesuit. “The dresses I prefer are those I invent for a life that does not yet exist,” Cardin said at the time.
In 1979, Cardin became the first French designer to trade with China, and in 1983, he became the first to trade in the Soviet Union. He was also the first designer to hold a fashion show in Red Square, Moscow, drawing a crowd of 200,000 in 1991.
By the 00s, the Pierre Cardin brand had lost some of its cache, and in 2011 he put his fashion label up for sale for €1bn, although it failed to find a buyer. Yet Cardin is still considered a trailblazer in the lucrative world of futurism, fashion and merchandise. As he told the New York Times in 1987: “I was born an artiste, but I am a businessman”.