Paco Rabanne was nicknamed “Wacko Paco” in the 60s for his often wearable designs. (file)
Paris:
Nicknamed “Vaco Paco” in the 1960s for his often wearable designs, Spain’s Paco Rabanne became most famous in later years for his globally popular fragrances as well as his eccentric beliefs.
Dismissed as a “metal worker” by Coco Chanel, her influence has nevertheless lasted generations and led to global superstar Lady Gaga wearing a dress made entirely of paper for her 2011 appearance at the MTV Europe Music Awards.
He also designed Jane Fonda’s iconic costume for the 1968 sci-fi film “Barbarella”, and clothing for French icons Brigitte Bardot and Françoise Hardy.
Raban started out as a co-creator of the 1960s space-age movement in fashion alongside designers such as Pierre Cardin, who incorporated the era’s weird excitement about the future and technological progress into his clothes.
His 1966 show brought instant fame and notoriety when he stunned audiences with “12 Unwearable Dresses”, his models dancing barefoot on the catwalk in outfits made of sharp metal and other unlikely materials.
“I’ve always had the impression of a time accelerator,” he wrote in typically cryptic style in 2016 for a retrospective at Antwerp’s fashion museum MoMu.
“Going as far as is appropriate for one’s time and not indulging in the morbid enjoyment of known things, which I see as decay.”
franco is running
Francisco Rabaneda-Cuervo was born in 1934 in the Basque region of Spain, near the city of San Sebastián, where his mother was a seamstress for designer Cristóbal Balenciaga and his father was an army general.
Raban’s life was uprooted by the Spanish Civil War when dictator Francisco Franco’s forces attacked and executed his father, a commander of the Guernica garrison, in 1936.
In 1939 his family fled to France and Raban went on to study at the University of Beaux-Arts in Paris, graduating with a Diploma in Architecture.
He began his fashion career making accessories – jewellery, ties, buttons – which attracted the attention of Christian Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Cardin.
After a media uproar surrounding his own line, Raban signed a deal in 1968 that brought him under the ownership of the Barcelona-based Puig family, which is heavily involved in the fashion and fragrance industry.
This marked his foray into perfumery, making his name synonymous with cologne, eventually eclipsing his fame as a designer.
‘mystic, madman’
Ever the provocateur, Raban had a penchant for mysticism and esotericism.
He claimed to have lived many lives, been approximately 78,000 years old, loved the earth, seen God and been visited by aliens.
In 1999 he predicted in his book “Fire from Heaven” that Paris would be destroyed later that year when the Russian space station Mir crashed into Earth – a claim derived from his reading of the 16th-century French seer Nostradamus.
The New York Times wrote in 2002, “To say that Paco Rabanne goes to his drummer is an understatement.” ,
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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