Vintage Pierre Cardin Gown

Best known for creating groundbreaking fashion designs from the 1950s onward, Pierre Cardin enjoyed great success in other design fields, most notably furniture. Cardin’s chairs, cabinets, tables and other pieces share many of the keynotes of his clothing designs. They are simple, geometric, elegant and cool.

Cardin was born in a village near Venice, Italy, and raised in central France. Always interested in fashion, he left home at age 17 to train with a Vichy tailor. After the end of World War II, Cardin moved to Paris and worked for a succession of couture houses, before taking a job with Christian Dior in 1946. Cardin went solo in 1950, and quickly won attention for his novel style. Unlike Dior’s famous New Look, Cardin’s clothes de-emphasized a woman’s curves; his breakthrough pieces like the Bubble dress had, instead, a sculptural quality. In the following decade, Cardin introduced bright tunic dresses and shifts, marketed as the Space Age look and accessorized with vinyl hats and visors.

In the 1970s Cardin expanded his design work into furniture, jewelry and automobiles. (Later, licensing agreements would put Cardin’s name on goods ranging from perfume to sunglasses.) Cardin’s furniture pieces — inspired, perhaps, by the rediscovery of Art Deco design in that decade — feature simple, symmetrical forms, lacquer and figured veneer finishes, and accents in metals such as aluminum and brass.

Whether you are looking for a vintage cocktail dress or a chest of drawers to keep it in, as you will see on 1stDibs, Pierre Cardin offers an option in either that is timelessly chic.

With entire museum exhibitions dedicated to examining fashion designers and their creations, we’re finally recognizing that costuming is art. Evening dresses over time have conveyed specific statements about social class, position and beliefs. Fashion is a powerful means of self-expression, and sophisticated vintage evening dresses and gowns by our favorite couturier play no small role in making us feel wonderful but, perhaps more importantly, making us feel like ourselves.

In the 16th century, dresses and gowns were so important that England's Queen Elizabeth I defined rules about what dresses women could wear — guidance included long skirts and fitted bodices. Forward-thinking designers have responded to this history.

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel reimagined traditionally masculine garments for feminine shapes, and her elegant evening dresses and gowns promoted comfort and grace in women’s wear that had been dominated in the previous century by layers of fabric. Christian Dior's gowns celebrated luxury and femininity in the late 1940s — and gave to women the gift of glamour they’d lost in the miserable years of the war. French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent introduced innovative and highly coveted dress designs in the 1960s while at the same time challenging sexist stereotypes about which members of society could wear tuxedos.

Works by unconventional British designer John Galliano — featured in houses like Givenchy and Dior — redefined limits that dressmakers faced in terms of material, construction and vision during the late 20th century. From his embroidered absinthe-green Oscars gown for actress Nicole Kidman to the iconic sleeveless Dior newspaper dress that Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw made famous, Galliano’s intricate and multifaceted work is reliably collectible and newsworthy

Today’s designers target an increasingly broad audience with their boundary-crossing work, and their tendency to play off of each other’s ideas means that every walk down the runway is also a walk through an entire history of fashion design and dress craftsmanship.

Whether you gravitate toward backless maxi dresses or silk charmeuse gowns by Alexander McQueen or embellished, ruffled floral-print designs by Chloe or Versace, there is an extraordinary collection of vintage and designer evening dresses and gowns waiting for you on 1stDibs.