Fashion designer Pierre Cardin died in December 2020 at the age of 98. He had no children. During his life he created a million-dollar empire and among other belongings he left real estate in Paris and the south of France, including a 350 million mansion and the castle of the Marquis de Sade. Nearly three years after his death, his heirs are still locked in a war over his estate.
Born in Italy under the name of Pietro Costante Cardin, at just 23 he moved to Paris, where he developed one of the longest and most successful careers in French haute couture. He had an innate talent for business: he created his own brand, expanded his franchises in different countries and put his name on all kinds of garments and accessories available to the masses.
From his inheritance, in addition to the holding company, subsidiaries, licenses and brands, he left incredible properties such as the futuristic Palais Bulles mansion on the French Riviera that was for sale for 350 million euros (1,200 square meters, amphitheater for 500 people, swimming pools, gardens, 10 suites, incredible views of the French Riviera); the castle of the Marquis de Sade in Lacoste in the south of France where dance and music recitals are held; and the palazzo Bragadin in Venice, decorated with masterpieces by Pietro Longhi, the great master of 18th-century high society. In the world of leisure, he owned the Maxim’s restaurant and hotel chain, for which he received a purchase offer of 2,500 million euros in 2016.
When he passed away, everything pointed to the fact that the lucky one to keep it all would be his nephew, the architect Rodrigo Basilicati Cardin, who became the group’s general manager in 2018 and then president in 2020. The designer came with him on his last visit to Spain, in January 2017, to present her play La belleza no tiene piedad at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya in Barcelona.
Basilicati, who says he has worked for nearly 25 years alongside his great-uncle, wants to “respect the wishes of Pierre Cardin, preserve his empire and defend his image.”
Confronting him are his cousins, also Cardin’s great-nieces, who accuse him of wanting to “recover all the individual assets of Pierre Cardin and the group through dubious and possibly fraudulent maneuvers,” his lawyer Jean-Louis Rivière told AFP. They want the group to be sold and denounce “an attempt to steal inheritance” by Basilicati.
According to Rivière, most of the Cardin family would be on the women’s side. The group’s assets are estimated at between 750 and 800 million euros, according to the purchase proposals, according to the lawyer.
One of the key points of the battle is in an alleged will signed by Pierre Cardin in November 2016 that designates Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin as sole heir. Curiously, it was he who found that document in 2022 in the Parisian building of his great-uncle. A “timely” finding after a purchase offer from the group with which “85% of the heirs agree,” says the lawyer Rivière. The validity of that will is under investigation by a civil court in Paris.
But the battle between the two parties has reached the criminal field. The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation in March following a complaint filed by Cardin’s great-nieces for abuse of weakness, aggravated breach of trust and fraud. This demand is added to a previous one, which was rejected in June, and two others that are being analyzed; one for breach of trust and forgery, and another for fraud and breach of trust.
In one of the lawsuits, the great-nieces question how Basilicati-Cardin took control of the holding company days after their great-uncle’s death. Her doubts revolve around the validity of the act of transfer of the shares that her grandmother Giovanna Cardin should have signed, days before her death in March 2000 at the age of 97.
Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin countered on June 21 with a libel suit. “Some members of the family, who do not accept that Pierre Cardin appointed me to succeed him, increase their procedures and try to mobilize the press with false accusations whose only objective is to harm me and affect the group,” says Basilicati-Cardin.
Under the impetus of Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, the Pierre Cardin company returned last March to the official women’s ready-to-wear calendar in Paris after 25 years of absence. “In the end, Pierre Cardin gave me important advice on his vision of the brand and that is a treasure that I want to develop,” says Basilicati-Cardin.
