Paco Rabanne
Paco Rabanne , actually Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo (born February 18, 1934 in San Sebastián ), is a Spanish-French fashion designer (couturier) and designer . The fashion company Paco Rabanne SAS , which he founded in Paris in 1965 and is known for its futuristic designs, still exists today and since 1987 has been wholly owned by the Spanish cosmetics group Puig, with which Rabanne began a collaboration on perfume in 1969 .
Life and company history
Rabanne spent his childhood in the Basque Country during the Spanish Civil War . According to different biographies, at the age of seven he is said to have had a "supernatural vision" that is said to have foretold the future of the world. Paco Rabanne's mother was the “first seamstress ” ( Première Main ) at Balenciaga , a renowned Spanish clothing store, which was to provide a fundamental impetus for the boy's career choice. In 1939 she fled to Paris with her son . Rabanne, who was enthusiastic about futurism , constructivism and science fiction from childhood on , studied architecture in Paris for twelve years from 1952 and also made fashion sketches for Parisian fashion houses such as the shoe manufacturer Charles Jourdan. In the field of art, for example, he was interested in Dadaism or the performance art of the Mouvement Panique . After his studies, Rabanne worked as a freelance fashion illustrator for Cardin , Givenchy and Courrèges , where he designed handbags, belts, jewelry, futuristic accessories and his first own collections. In 1965 he used the transparent plastic Rhodoïd for the first time to design fashion jewelry in collaboration with stylists known in Paris at the time. In the same year he opened his own fashion atelier on Rue de Caire in Paris. In February 1966, Rabanne presented his first haute couture collection with futuristic models in the Parisian Hôtel George V. This Manifesto collection with the title "12 unwearable dresses made of contemporary materials" (French 12 robes importables en matériaux contemporains ) consisted primarily of skimpy dresses, which were made of innumerable metallic shimmering Rhodoïd sequins. Rabanne's international breakthrough came in 1968 with the costume design for the film Barbarella , in which he designed, among other things, the skin-tight catsuit for the leading actress Jane Fonda .
Alongside Courrèges and Yves Saint Laurent, Paco Rabanne is still considered to be a style-defining factor in 1960s fashion. During this time he developed his most innovative ideas that broke all conventions. Always inspired by industrial topics (e.g. from space travel ), he amazed with extravagant and sensational models. Rabanne always used unusual materials for clothing in his collections. He is considered the “plumber” of the fashion industry because he liked to use metal parts, aluminum, plastic and glass fibers that were joined together with wire, pliers and soldering iron (“molded dresses”). His "chain mail", which consists of countless rings, discs and metal objects, are famous. From Coco Chanel he was nicknamed 'metal worker' (French: métallurgiste). Sometimes he also used cardboard, paper or phosphorescent furs for his costumes. When Paco Rabanne designed his first collection in 1964, he couldn't understand why other designers didn't use music in their fashion shows . “I loved music from the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, and I couldn't believe the designers were showing off their designs in total silence. So I played music at my shows. "
In 1969 Rabanne entered into a collaboration with the Spanish cosmetics group Puig on perfumes and launched the women's fragrance Calandre (radiator grille) created by perfumer Michael Hy, which is still available today in slight variations. The first men's fragrance Paco Rabanne pour Homme followed in 1973 . A handful of commercially successful Rabanne fragrances such as Métal (1979), La Nuit (1985), Sport (1986) or Ténéré (1988) followed until the 1990s , and finally in 1993/1994 the bestseller XS , each for women and men, came on the market, which was subsequently varied numerous. Since then, other perfumes have appeared under the name Paco Rabanne, such as Ultraviolet (from 1999), Ultrared (2008), 1 Million (2008), Lady Million (2010), Invictus (2013), Olympéa (2015) etc.
In 1976 Rabanne expanded its range to include men's fashion. A prêt-à-porter collection for women was added in 1990. From the mid-1970s onwards, Rabanne tended to reproduce and satirize his own work over and over again; there were no new ideas and it lost importance in the fashion business. In 1987, Puig bought the entire Paco Rabanne company, including the perfume and fashion division. From 1999 onwards, Rabanne began to gradually withdraw from his company. The haute couture division of the fashion house was given up in 1999. In 2002 Rabanne von Puig was joined by designer Rosemary Rodríguez for the prêt-à-porter collections, with whom he appeared on the catwalk for the final applause until 2004 at the end of the Paris fashion shows. In 2005 the American designer Patrick Robinson was hired. In 2006, however, Puig temporarily put all Rabanne fashion collections on hold. It was not until 2011 that Rabanne women's fashion was re-launched with the British-Indian designer Manish Arora. Arora was followed in summer 2012 by the German-Colombian fashion designer Lydia Maurer as chief designer. In mid-2013 the Belgian and former Balenciaga designer Julien Dossena was appointed creative director of women's fashion at Paco Rabanne. Dossena's designs were subsequently praised by fashion critics. The studios are located in Paris above the flagship store of Nina Ricci , another Puig fashion company, on Avenue Montaigne. In January 2016, since the other Paco Rabanne boutiques had closed more than ten years earlier, a new shop was opened on Paris’s Rue Cambon. The house's women's fashion is presented at the official prêt-à-porter fashion shows during Paris Fashion Week .
As a fashion designer, Rabanne has now almost completely withdrawn from his company and is primarily concerned with esotericism . He claims that when he was seven, he had a vision of the future. Among other things, he announced the crash of the Soviet Mir space station on Paris in 1999 and the "rescue of the righteous" and prophesied the approach of an Aquarian age marked by harmony .
literature
- Paco Rabanne and Lydia Kamitsis: Paco Rabanne . Schirmer / Mosel, Munich / Paris / London 1998, ISBN 3-88814-362-4 .
- Paco Rabanne: The end of our time . Droemer Knaur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-426-86085-6 .
Web links
Receipts / individual evidence
- ↑ Paco Rabanne réinventé lemonde.fr, October 16, 2011
- ↑ Star portrait: Paco Rabanne gala.de, accessed: July 8, 2014.
- ↑ New Beginning vogue.de, February 4, 2011
- ↑ Lydia Maurer for Paco Rabanne vogue.de, June 8, 2012
- ↑ Fashion News: Julien Dossena for Paco Rabanne elle.de, August 1, 2013
- ↑ julien dossena leads paco rabanne back to the future vice.com, December 2, 2015
- ↑ How Julien Dossena Is Reviving the House of Paco Rabanne instyle.com, June 30, 2017
- ↑ Belgian firm OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen designs Paco Rabanne's new Paris boutique wallpaper.com, February 25, 2016
- ↑ The European: doomsday theeuropean.de 29 December 2009 at
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rabanne, Paco |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Rabaneda-Cuervo, Francisco (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish-French fashion designer, couturier and designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 18, 1934 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | San Sebastian |