Pierre Cardin has spent a lifetime waging battle, imposing his will and maverick sensibilities on the wayward human form.

“When I design a dress, I don’t design it around a woman’s body,” he once famously said. “I design the dress, and then put a woman inside it.”

That credo has informed much of the 97-year-old couturier’s prophetic output, on view in “Pierre Cardin, Future Fashion,” a retrospective that opens on July 20 at the Brooklyn Museum.

Highlights of the show — they include a 1970 brief roll-collar tunic over a black wool unitard, a 1969 orange and black “armor dress” made of Plexiglas and vinyl, and a 1968 Plexiglas helmet with a face shield — attest to a relevance that persists to this day.