Pierre Cardin opened a dual showroom and retail site in Manhattan's SoHo on Wednesday, its first US showroom in decades, with one purpose front and center: recruiting American licensing partners for a business that generated roughly 600 million euros last year.

The 76-year-old brand already runs about two dozen licenses in the US producing approximately 800 items, according to designer and president Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, nephew of the late founder. The company says it holds 130 active licenses worldwide. Six new US licenses have just been signed across men's, activewear, shoes, accessories, sportswear and leisurewear, alongside a new international fragrance license. Treat the confirmed signings and the stated revenue as the only hard numbers here. The rest, for now, is intent.

"I would like to boost our network of licensees in the U.S.," Basilicati-Cardin said in an interview with WWD.

What does the SoHo site change?

The location functions as a working licensing instrument rather than a flagship. It gives Matthew Gonder, Cardin's US and Canada licensing agent, a fixed venue to meet suppliers, cutting travel that previously defined the outreach model.

The floor will carry a curated edit spanning eyewear, ties, handbags, fragrance, 3D-printed T-shirts and a small couture line. For prospective licensees, that edit serves as a category map. Cardin wants manufacturers in categories it has not previously produced, including furniture, jeans, lifestyle athleisure wear and certain accessories.

The move revives a structure the brand abandoned long ago. In the 1980s, Cardin operated a corporate office at 53 East 57th Street in New York that combined a showroom with management of the US licensing business.

Confirmed versus aspirational

Some claims warrant caution. The company calls the SoHo launch a turning point for North America. That is a framing, not a result. "The House has 130 active licenses worldwide, and the ambition is to take Pierre Cardin beyond the heights it reached in North America in the 1970s," Basilicati-Cardin said. The 1970s benchmark is a marketing reference point; the company offered no comparable revenue figure for that era.

The retail footprint stays deliberately thin. Cardin operates one boutique, at 59 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, plus a licensed outlet in Tsawwassen Mills, British Columbia. There are no plans for additional US stores. US consumers can buy the brand on Amazon, but Cardin does not otherwise wholesale in the American market. So the SoHo store is a proof-of-concept for licensees, not the start of a retail rollout.

The pricing logic behind the model

Licensing remains central to how Pierre Cardin makes money. The brand designs and produces a couture collection in-house twice a year, plus some accessories, but the licensees carry the volume. The strategy follows the founder's stated philosophy.

"It was the idea of my uncle originally to not design super high-priced luxury. He said that the real potential for business is for medium-priced design — to design for everyone," Basilicati-Cardin said.

Pierre Cardin, who died in 2020 at 98, pioneered the licensing model itself. For prospective manufacturing partners, that history cuts both ways: an established licensing apparatus and recognized name, weighed against a brand whose US distribution today rests on a single showroom and one e-commerce channel.

Technical credentials on display

The company is also leaning on its work with the European Space Agency. Basilicati-Cardin designed suits astronauts use in training for future moon missions, and some of those solutions were adapted for the spring 2027 collection shown earlier this month at a Paris skating rink. Whether that technical association translates into licensee demand remains untested; no partner names accompanied the announcement.

For US manufacturers evaluating an approach, the concrete opening is this: Gonder now has a standing venue in SoHo, and the brand is actively seeking long-term partners in categories outside its existing 800-SKU (stock-keeping unit) base. The pipeline runs through the showroom, not through wholesale accounts.