PIERRE CARDIN ❘ ICONS OF FRANCE


Main image and above: Pierre Cardin in front of


the window of his boutique at 118 Rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré, looking at the display of accessories; Pierre as a boy, shortly after his arrival in France. This photograph was taken in 1925 in Saint-Étienne,


where his family had taken refuge from Italian fascism


never held a steady job. The family lived near Grenoble and La Tour-du-Pin. Pierre’s parents were mild-mannered. They read books, enjoyed discussions, and shared the housework. These attitudes were to leave their mark on the boy, who saw in them a form of society where the sexes were more or less equal, and gender roles less rigid. A family where it was not strange to see the father wash the dishes or sweep the fl oor. It was the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s, there was no such thing as unemployment benefi ts, and individual solidarity was the only thing one could hope for. But for Pietro, daily life was an uphill battle. He was called ‘macaroni’, a derogatory term for immigrant Italians. Hurt, offended, and stigmatised by the name, the young boy’s scars ran deep. Reality in France did not live up to the country’s lofty ideals: Pierre was a victim of xenophobia.


“DAILY LIFE WAS AN UPHILL BATTLE. HE WAS CALLED ‘MACARONI’, A DEROGATORY TERM”


modest. Their fi rst children were pampered, but for the last-born, everything was very precarious. In addition, the elder daughters – Rita, Alba, Teresa, and Palmira – had also had to fl ee, settling in La Tour du Pin, where they lodged with nuns. They found jobs in the factories at Dickson, a company created in 1918, specialising in the manufacture of coated fabrics.


The young immigrant Pierre soaked up French language and culture. School helped him to integrate but he saw, with the all-seeing eyes of a child, that his parents were old and foreign. Because of his advanced age, Pierre’s father struggled to make ends meet doing odd jobs. He was, in turn, a labourer and a metal worker at the Crozet-Fourneyron factory in Le Chambon-Feugerolles. He


Pierre and his family next lived in Saint-Clair-de-la-Tour, two miles from La Tour-du-Pin, where his father was employed at the Dickson Walrave rope factory. He would always remember the spinning mill and the factory, the smell of the apples gathered by his parents for the winter, and the sacks of nuts. In 1931, on the recommendation of André, the eldest son, the family fi nally settled in Saint-Étienne, at 18 Rue de Firminy. This manufacturing city in the Loire department was steeped in industrial and working-class tradition. The Cardinis stayed there until 1939, when they moved to the Rue Dard Janin, in a small house owned by the city’s civil hospices. By this time, Pierre was 17. Already the memory of Italy had faded, the language of Molière replacing that of Dante. At school he became acquainted with the giants of French civilisation: Gaulish chieftain Vercingetorix, Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Pasteur. At 13, the discerning adolescent formally requested naturalisation. Enquiries were launched into his family’s past, certifi cates of good conduct requested. Pierre was fi nally offi cially naturalised French at the same ❯❯


Feb/Mar 2023 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 99


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