Who was Paco Rabanne, fashion metallurgist, who died at 88?

Whether you are interested in fashion or not, the name of Paco Rabanne resonates with many people, whether it is associated with his metal clothes or the commercial success of the perfumes that bear his nickname. Still, real name Francisco Rabaneda y Cuervo liked to pretend that fashion wasn’t really his thing. And it is precisely this that makes the career of this Spaniard so fascinating that he made his name in France before dying there on February 3, 2023.

Who was really Francisco Rabaneda y Cuervo, alias Paco Rabanne?

Francisco Rabaneda y Cuervo was born on February 18, 1934 in Pasaia, Spain. His mother was officiated by Cristóbal Balenciaga, a designer based in San Sebastián until 1936 before becoming the great black couturier who revolutionized Parisian fashion. He doesn’t have time to remember his father, an officer, colonel of the republican forces during the civil war during which he was shot by Franco in 1939. Little Paco was then 5 years old, and he left Spain with his family to first take refuge in the Pyrenees , then in Brittany.

He trained in architecture at the Beaux-Arts, as well as in the studio of Auguste Perret, inventor of reinforced concrete. To finance his studies, he sold designs and accessories for major houses such as Givenchy, Dior or Nina Ricci in the 1960s, before launching his own line of jewelery in Rhodoïd (light and rigid plastic, an innovation of the time). The following year, the provocative student staged his first fashion show in 1966: “ 12 importable dresses in contemporary materials “. Rhodoïd creations worn by black models (doubly unthinkable for the time), with The masterless hammer by the great composer of serialism Pierre Boulez in the soundtrack. It’s so confusing that many reporters leave the room along the way. His reputation is launched.

The prolific career of fashion metalworker Paco Rabanne

This great follower of the diversion then attacks the metal to create clothes in aluminum plates which he assembles together with rivets (impossible to be able to sew them together). He also diverts wood, vinyl, holographic glass or solar reflectors to create his famous assemblages. It’s a pity if the resulting dresses are often importable, they still mark their time, to the point that Gabrielle Chanel nicknamed it” the metallurgist “fashionable. A spade that sublimates quite well, especially with Françoise Hardy wearing a 16kg metal suit in 1968 to sing at the Savoy cabaret in London. He dressed her on several occasions, as well as other fashion and beauty icons of the era, such as Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda (the clothes of Barbarellawas he), Audrey Hepburn (her multifaceted dress in Travel for twohim again), Jane Birkin, or Sylvie Vartan.

Paco Rabanne obtained the Dé d’Or (haute couture award) in 1990, immediately after selling his brand in 1986 to the Spanish luxury group Puig (which today owns Dries Van Noten, Jean Paul Gaultier, Nina Ricci, or Carolina Herrera). He continues to decline his universe in commercially successful perfumes, such as XS, One Million or Invictus, while the artistic direction of the fashion part is now provided by the French Julien Dossena.

The esoteric end of Paco Rabanne’s life

Since the 1990s he has flourished as an extravagant author and has sold millions of copies of his more or less esoteric works (Path in 1991, The present AND The end of time In 1994, The Enlightenment of Buddhism in 1997, The Indian Lesson and Iand Fire from Heaven in 1999 and finally Ariadne’s thread in 2005). He who enjoyed giving his predictions about the future in the media has learned to be more discreet following a failed premonition: he had predicted that the Mir space station would crash in Paris in August 1999, which didn’t happen verified. The same year he leaves his home which therefore continues without him. Since then he has rarely reappeared, except as a painter or interior designer, but never again in fashion.

An empire of meshes, metals and assemblages of improbable materials remains behind him, in addition to his fame as an enlightened artist, convinced that he has already had 36 lives. His latest reincarnation as a great couturier has therefore just ended in the shadow of Finistère, on February 3, 2023, at the age of 88. An age that doubles the infinity signs: the latest coincidence?

Front page photo credit: Youtube screenshot.