Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne checks one of his dresses on January 20, 1999, before the presentation of the Spring-Summer 1999 haute couture collection in Paris (AFP/Archives/Frederick FLORIN)
Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne, as famous for his metal outfits as he is for his eccentric statements, has died aged 88 in France, where his family had taken refuge due to the Spanish Civil War.
“With deep sadness, Puig announces the death of Paco Rabanne”, announced in a press release the Catalan group which owns the brand bearing his name, confirming information from the regional daily Le Télégramme.
The designer died in the village of Portsall, in Brittany, where he lived, a spokesman told AFP.
“A major fashion personality, his vision was bold, revolutionary and provocative, conveyed by a unique aesthetic. He will remain an important source of inspiration for Puig’s fashion and fragrance teams, who work together constantly to express the codes radically modern by Mr. Paco Rabanne,” said Marc Puig, CEO of the group, quoted in the press release.
Jose Manuel Albesa, president of Puig’s beauty and fashion division, for his part paid tribute to the designer’s “radical and rebellious spirit”.
– “Improbable dresses” –
“Who else could inspire fashionable Parisiennes to demand plastic and metal dresses? Who other than Paco Rabanne could imagine a perfume called +Calandre+ – the word means +car grille+ – and make it a icon of modern femininity?” he added.
Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne presents a line of clothes made of plastic and metal, in Tokyo, May 12, 1969 (PANASIA/AFP/Archives/-)
Born on February 18, 1934 in the Spanish Basque Country, near San Sebastian where his mother was first hand at Cristobal Balenciaga, Paco Rabanne – whose real name is Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo – graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Paris, architecture section.
His father, General Rabaneda Postigo, who commanded the Guernica garrison, was shot by Franco’s soldiers in 1936. In 1939, the family had taken refuge in France.
He began his career by creating accessories, jewelry, ties, buttons that he offered to Dior, Saint-Laurent or Cardin. Before embarking on fashion in turn to bring it to life in line with new materials and techniques.
In 1966, Paco Rabanne presented his collection made up of “12 importable dresses in contemporary materials” in a provocative parade where black models, dancing barefoot, paraded for the first time. Success was immediate, although his first models weighed 30 kg.
Two years later, Jane Fonda is cast in her costume in the sci-fi film “Barbarella”. He also dresses French icons Brigitte Bardot and Françoise Hardy.
A fashion show presenting the Paco Rabanne collection of women’s ready-to-wear fall-winter 2020-2021, in Paris, February 27, 2020 (AFP/Archives/FRANCOIS GUILLOT)
In 2011, global superstar Lady Gaga caused a stir in a paper moon dress designed by Paco Rabanne Studios for the MTV European Music Awards.
Throughout his career, the couturier, who assiduously practiced esotericism, also stood out for a number of eccentric statements and hazardous predictions.
In 1999, for example, he had announced in one of his books the destruction of Paris by the fall of the Mir station, based on a very personal reading of the prophecies of Nostradamus.
The same year, the house had ceased its haute couture activity to refocus on ready-to-wear.
© 2023 AFP
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