The audacity of Paco Rabanne

On 3 February, in the French town of Portsall, the famous Spanish stylist and costume designer Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo, better known as Paco Rabanne, passed away at the age of 88. Born in the Basque Country on February 19, 1934, the son of very poor refugees fleeing Spain and the civil war. His mother was head seamstress at the famous designer Balenciaga. From an early age he breathed the air of fashion and fabrics, but decided to study architecture in Paris avoiding the golden world of couture fashion, considered antiquated and restrictive. Within a few years he became famous for the use of unconventional materials such as metals, plastic and paper to give life to his futuristic models, the result of an eccentric aesthetic far from tradition. He creates the "Space Age" style made of clothes made with metallic weaves, large aluminum sequins and disposable paper dresses.

In 1964 Paco Rabanne presented his first collection and in 1966 the Manifesto with the iconic dresses made with iridescent plastic discs and accessories in rhodoid, an innovative acetate plastic material of cellulose. The fashion show also remains in the annals for the use of music and the introduction of the first black models, which earned him the nickname of Jules Verne of fashion. He cultivates his interest in experimentation and the desire for social change and his clothes become a symbol of an era. A master of audacity and originality, over the years he has dressed divas and actresses such as Audrey Hepburn and has made dresses for numerous films such as Barbarella. He retired in 1999 and rarely appeared in public until the publication of his biography Journey From One Life to Another, where he gives free rein to his most mystical and spiritual side. The Eliseo celebrates him with these words: «He was a couturier who didn't sew, but welded, hammered, assembled, played with the texture of the skin as with the fabric and reinvented the meaning of dressing. He elevated clothing to the status of an art object ».


Eliza d'Adamo
NP March 2023