Designer Paco Rabanne dies at 88, an icon of transgressive fashion

Paco Rabanne, a native of Pasajes (Guipúzcoa), died this Friday, February 3 at his home in Portsall, a small French town in Ploudalmézeau (Brittany). National Design Award from the Ministry of Culture, he is considered a great fashion innovator.

The House of Paco Rabanne pays tribute to its founder on its website, as “one of the most influential fashion figures of the 20th century”. His legacy, it reads, “will continue to be a constant source of inspiration.” The statement concludes: “We are grateful to Monsieur Rabanne for establishing our cutting-edge heritage and defining a future of limitless possibilities.”

Puig has also communicated the death of the dressmaker. The collaboration between the designer and the fashion and beauty company began in the late 1960s when Antonio and Mariano Puig, members of the second generation of the Puig family business, visited Rabanne at his offices near the Folies Bergère in Paris. They sealed a loyal alliance with a designer capable of translating passion and youthful rebellion into successful fragrances.

The first perfume, in 1969, was Calandre. It was launched in Spain, France and the United States, thus paving the way for the company’s international development.

Plastic and metal dresses

“Paco Rabanne made transgression magnetic. Who else could induce elegant Parisian women to clamor for dresses made of plastic and metal? Who but he could imagine a fragrance called Calandre (meaning ‘car grill’) and make it an icon of modern femininity? That radical and rebellious spirit sets him apart: there is only one Rabanne. With his passing we are reminded once again of his enormous influence on contemporary fashion, a spirit that lives on in the maison that bears his name”, has declared Jose Manuel Albesapresident of Puig’s Beauty and Fashion division.

“His great personality transmitted, through a unique aesthetic, his daring, revolutionary and provocative vision of the world of fashion. He will continue to be an important source of inspiration for the Puig fashion and fragrance teams, who work together to express the codes radically modern works by Paco Rabanne. My most sincere condolences to his family and to those who knew him”, he declared Marc Puigexecutive president of Puig.