The fashion world continues to say goodbye to legends. Paco Rabann passed away after Vivienne Westwood.
“Paco Rabanne wants to honor the memory of our visionary designer and founder, who passed away today at the age of 88. She was one of the most important fashion figures of the 20th century and her legacy will continue to be a constant source of inspiration. We are grateful to Monsieur Raban for creating an avant-garde legacy and defining a future with limitless possibilities.”
– said in a statement posted on the brand’s website and social networks.
by publication The Telegram, Paco Raban died at his home in the village of Portsal, in the province of Finistère, in northwest France. It is unclear why the fashion designer died. He would have turned 89 on February 18.
Although the name of Paco Raban is known to everyone, even people far from the world of fashion, only a few know that he was given a slightly different name at birth – Francisco Rabanedo Cuervo. The future fashion designer was born in the small town of Pasajes in the province of Gipuzkoa, which is part of the Basque Country. After the death of his father during the Spanish Civil War, he moved with his mother to France, where he got a job as a tailor for Cristobal Balenciaga. He got involved in high fashion by frequently visiting the rather small, newly opened Balenciaga House.
Later, Francisco entered the National College of Fine Arts in Paris for an architectural direction. However, during his education, he realized that he did not want to associate his life with architecture and became interested in making jewelry and accessories. His talent (not without the help of his mother) was noticed in Balenciaga, where he began to supply his products, and then in Givenchy, Christian Dior and other fashion houses.
In 1964, Francisco received a diploma, but he did not start working as expected in his profession – he preferred modeling clothes to designing buildings. As early as 1966, she founded the Paco Rabanne House and presented her first collection in Paris – “12 unwearable dresses.” The name was fully justified: everything was made not from fabric, but from plastic, metal and paper.
“He’s not a fashion designer, he’s a tinsmith,” Coco Chanel, a living legend at the time, told Paco Raban.
It turned out that the actresses are more open to the new. A year after her debut as a fashion designer, Paco Raban dressed Audrey Hepburn in her dress (Two for the Road, 1967). And in 1968, the movie Barbarella was released, in which, together with costume designer Jacques Fonterey, he created two dozen looks for Jane Fonda.
Unconventional materials were not the only innovations that Paco Raban invented. He was one of the first to host a musical show and to invite black models to the runway.
I remember Paco Raban not only as a fashion designer, but also as a perfumer. In 1969 she launched her first fragrance, Calandre, and in 1973 she launched a men’s perfume with a then revolutionary combination of woody and floral notes. Many perfumes he created in the nineties and zeros, especially “XS” and “One Million”, are still loved and in demand by buyers all over the world.
“An architect at heart, Paco Raban saw in his models the dash of the future, futurism, multiplied by images of medieval Spanish metal chain mail. It was difficult to sit in your clothes, but to stand was very impressive.” speech A fashion designer who knew Raban personally, with socialbites.ca, the death of fashion historian Alexander Vasiliev.