Aside from some breathless celebrity endorsements, Pierre Cardin comes across as a designer ahead of his time, explored in a respectful, decent doc
After a somewhat breathless opening section – yes, we get it, Pierre Cardin was a genius – this genuflecting documentary settles down into a watchable portrait of the late
fashion designer that astutely showcases Cardin’s ease in front of the camera (Cardin died in December 2020, after this film was first released). Although there are a string of archive clips featuring Cardin waspishly telling people off or putting them in their place back in the 1960s and 70s, Cardin, in his ninth decade, comes across as a genial, self-deprecating presence, happy to keep on putting projects into the pipeline even though he knows he won’t live to see them realised.