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Paco Rabanne: Looking to The Late Pioneer in a Time of Crisis

After his death on February 3, we remember the designer and his legacy of turning unconventional materials into haute couture.

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Paco Rabanne: Looking to The Late Pioneer in a Time of Crisis
Daphne Mylonas

Daphne Mylonas

Date
February 14, 2023
Read
1 Min

In his fashion house’s 1966 debut couture collection, Manifesto: 12 Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials, Spanish designer Paco Rabanne made dresses, recognized by traditional standards as “unwearable,” from materials like plastic, paper, and metal. The runway show at the Hotel George V in Paris featured models wearing his chainmail dresses, with nothing underneath, parading barefoot to Pierre Boulez’s erratic surrealist work, Le Marteau sans Maître. The audience was both amazed and appalled, but soon Rabanne’s metal and plastic dresses had paradoxically won over the most elegant of Parisian women, becoming emblematic of the avant-garde and the mid-century Space Age. His designs have been admired as masterpieces to this day. 

Before officially surrendering to his talent for dressmaking (he had previously supported his studies in architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris by making designs for Christian Dior and Hubert de Givenchy), Rabanne worked for August Peret, France’s leading developer of reinforced concrete, for over 10 years. His experience in industrial design led him to, in the words of Alexandre Samson, fashion curator and historian at the Palais Galliera museum, “turn his back on classical fabric.” Instead, he brought a new dimension to the art of dressmaking by engineering futuristic structures and using workable materials no designer had previously dared to associate with the elegant world of high fashion, or worse, convince a woman worthy of couture to don. Rabanne’s designs transformed the entire notion of the dress as an article of clothing, and as a piece of art. His work managed to equate fashion with materials of a decidedly unfashionable industry. It was so impactful that it warranted Salvador Dalí’s brazen statement: “There are only two geniuses in Spain: me and Paco Rabanne.” 

Today, Paco Rabanne’s signature flamboyant, chainmail-inspired designs have influenced fashion houses like Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Noir Kei Ninomiya, and Jil Sander. However, during a time when the fashion industry, currently responsible for 10% of annual global carbon emissions, 20% of global creation of wastewater, annual consumption of 93 billion cubic meters of water, and incineration and disposal of 87% of the industry’s total fiber input, is facing a crisis of sustainability, Paco Rabanne’s designs may offer inspiration beyond their brilliant surface. His innovative use of materials should propel designers to seek opportunities for fashion where they may not be expected, to transform their craft so that it has value beyond beauty or even the avant-garde, so that it can lead the change the industry must urgently see. 

Some designers have taken up the cause, resembling Paco Rabanne in their nontraditional use of materials. Fashion house Stella McCartney has developed MIRUM®, an “entirely plastic-, fossil fuel- and water-free alternative to animal leather,” designer Gabriela Hearst is committed to the use of deadstock materials in bold and elegant garments, Kevin Germanier utilizes disregarded materials to create extravagant designs that have redefined sustainable fashion so that it is not, in his words, “just about organic linen,” Conner Ives upcycles vintage clothing to create pieces that are one-of-a-kind, Alexandra Sipa reworks discarded electrical wire into lace, and Katie Jones has brought to couture the low-waste practices of knitting and crocheting using recycled wool. 

From left to right: Images from Stella McCartney, Gabriela Hearst, Kevin Germanier, Conner Ives, Alexandra Sipa, Katie Jones

These designers, and many more, make clothing by sourcing unique materials in sustainable ways, without sacrificing their artistic visions or restricting their power for innovation. They belong to the world of high fashion, not only because they create art, but because they are in conversation with the people who interact with their designs, and they respond to the plea for clothing that is not just art, but that will last, in a world that will not collapse in the name of fashion. For that reason, these pieces may be more worthy of being called “fashion” than those by houses which hold their clothing’s beauty or brand’s prestige above their environment and, ultimately, their customers. Sustainable designers hold the power to inspire change in a huge industry that will always revere and imitate luxury wear, one that satisfies the most basic of human needs, and will therefore never stop being needed. After Paco Rabanne’s recent passing, sustainable designers may reflect on the oeuvre of the esteemed artist and feel the pride of knowing that they are renewing his legacy. 

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