Paris: French couturier Pierre Cardin, who made his name by selling designer clothes to the masses, and his fortune by being the first to exploit that name as a brand for selling everything from cars to perfume, died on Tuesday, aged 98.

In a career spanning more than 60 years, Cardin drew scorn and admiration from fellow fashion designers for his brash business sense. He maintained that he built his business empire without ever asking a bank for a loan.

Cardin was the first designer to sell clothes collections in department stores in the late 1950s, and the first to enter the licensing business for perfumes, accessories and even food – now a major profit driver for many fashion houses.

"It's all the same to me whether I am doing sleeves for dresses or table legs," a telling quote on his website once read.

Hard as it may be to imagine decades later, Armani chocolates, Bulgari hotels and Gucci sunglasses are all based on Cardin's realisation that a fashion brand's glamour had endless merchandising potential.

Over the years his name has been stamped on razor blades, household goods, and tacky accessories – even cheap boxer shorts.

A licensing maverick, Cardin’s name embossed myriad products from wristwatches to bedsheets, making his label among the world’s most famous. In the brand’s heyday in the 1970s and ’80s, his products were sold at some 100,000 outlets worldwide, though that number dwindled dramatically in later decades.

A savvy businessman, Cardin used his fabulous wealth to snap up top-notch properties in Paris, including the Belle Epoque restaurant Maxim’s. He was inducted into the Fine Arts Academy in 1992.

The academy announced his death in a tweet on Tuesday.

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