Rabanne, Paco

(1934- )

   Born Francisco Rabaneda y Cuervo in San Sebastian, Spain, he and his mother fled to France in 1939, during the Spanish Civil War, after his father was executed by Francisco Franco's regime. Rabanne studied architecture at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts and, in 1963, won an award for his garden sculpture, which was exhibited in the Museé d'art moderne de la ville de Paris. As a student in the 1950s and 1960s, Rabanne sold drawings of handbags to Roger Model and drawings of shoes to Charles Jourdan. He designed dresses under the name Franck Rabanne, which were published in 1959 in Women's Wear Daily. Rabanne and his mother, a former seamstress at the house of Balenciaga in Spain, had a small business producing unusual buttons and embroideries for couture houses in Paris until 1966. In 1965, Rabanne created oversized jewelry in bright colors using untraditional materials that was featured in the collections of Givenchy, Dior, and Balenciaga, which gained him media attention. In 1966, he showed his first collection in Paris, Twelve Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials, and his reputation as France's enfant terrible was sealed.

   Rabanne was famous for the use of unconventional materials such as coconuts, rhodöid discs, paper, plastic paillettes, wood, laser discs, the patented Giffo process of molding buttons and pockets into a garment block, and his signature metal ring seaming techniques. His designs were in great demand for their artistic and innovative character and for their space-age futuristic look. He was also a favorite costume designer of the theater, ballet, and cinema. His costumes for the movie Barbarella, in 1968, are legendary as were his chain mail dresses for the film Who Are You, Molly Magoo? As is the case with most designers of his stature, Rabanne created a line of fragrances beginning in 1969 with Calandre. In 1991, Rabanne published a book on paranormal phenomena called Trajectoire, a subject that he would often write about. His other books are El Fin de Los Tiempos (1995), La Iluminaciôn del Budismo (1997), Dawn of the Golden Age: A Spiritual Design For Living (1999), and Journey: From One Life to Another (1999). Rabanne closed his couture and unisex Paco business in 1999 but continued his many licenses and fragrances. The Puig Group, a Barcelona-based beauty and fashion conglomerate, reopened the ready-to-wear collection in 2000 with Rabanne and Spanish designer Rosemary Rodriquez. In 2006, American designer Patrick Robinson replaced Rodriquez as creative director.