Legendary fashion designer Pierre Cardin will personally host a fashion runway show at The Breakers this June, providing a spectacular introduction to a new fashion exhibition highlighting his most iconic work that will be on display at Rosecliff, another iconic Newport Mansion, through the end of 2017.
Pierre Cardin: 70 Years of Innovation, will open in the exhibition gallery at Rosecliff on May 27, featuring 42 original pieces from Mr. Cardin’s private archives that document and celebrate his prolific career from the 1950s through his 2016 spring/summer collection.
On June 17, Mr. Cardin himself will host a fashion runway show in the Great Hall of The Breakers, Newport’s largest and most iconic Gilded Age mansion that will feature nearly 90 looks demonstrating a range of his work and highlighting some of his most admired projects. Following the runway show, guests will enjoy a champagne reception on the loggia of The Breakers, including a birthday cake to celebrate Mr. Cardin’s imminent 95th birthday on July 2.
The Rosecliff exhibition will be housed in the second floor exhibition gallery, and feature a retrospective of Mr. Cardin’s prolific career. Included will be some of his most memorable designs, including 1960s space-age looks from the Cosmocorps collection, unisex jumpsuits created for the 1972 Olympics, and the technologically advanced Cardine dress, made of thermo-formed fabric that was worn by Lauren Bacall in 1968.
In addition to fashion, Mr. Cardin’s interests have extended to art, architecture and furniture design. Some pieces from his extensive collection of art by French Belle Époque caricaturist Georges Goursat, also known as SEM, will also be included in the exhibition. Complementing the artwork will be a vignette from Maxim’s, the storied Parisian restaurant that Mr. Cardin has owned since 1981.
The exhibition will be on view through January 1, 2018, and is included in regular Rosecliff tour admission. For more information about the runway show and the exhibition and to purchase tickets, visit http://www.newportmansions.org/events/pierre-cardin.
Trudy Coxe, CEO & Executive Director of The Preservation Society of Newport County, said, “We are honored by Mr. Cardin’s support of the Preservation Society in this amazing way, and especially that he will personally travel to Newport from Paris to be with us in June. As perhaps the world’s most iconic fashion designer, it is only appropriate that his fashions will be featured in two of the world’s most iconic historic properties, The Breakers and Rosecliff.”
All proceeds from the fashion show and the exhibition will benefit The Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island, a non-profit organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and dedicated to protecting, preserving and presenting the area’s historic architecture, landscapes, decorative arts and social history. Its 11 historic properties – seven of them National Historic Landmarks – span more than 250 years of American architectural and social development.
