Paco Rabanne, best known for his perfumes and fashion designs, has died aged 88 at his home in France.
His death was confirmed by Puig, the parent company of his brands, which said he had “marked generations with his radical vision of fashion and his legacy will live on”.
Rabanne, whose real name was Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo, gained global fame for his eccentric clothing designs.
Puig’s fashion president, José Manuel Albesa, hailed Rabanne’s designs, which he said “made transgression magnetic”.
“Who else could induce fashionable Parisian women to clamour for dresses made of plastic and metal,” Mr Albesa said. “That radical, rebellious spirit set him apart: There is only one Rabanne.”
Marc Puig, chairman and chief executive officer of Puig, called Rabanne a “major personality in fashion” and paid tribute to his “daring, revolutionary and provocative vision, conveyed through a unique aesthetic”.
Paco Rabanne innovator in fragrance and fashion
Rabanne was born into a military family in Spain’s Basque region, near the city of San Sebastian. His father was a colonel in the Republican military who was executed by Gen Francisco Franco’s nationalist forces in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.
His mother – who had worked as a seamstress for the designer Cristobal Balenciaga – moved the family to Paris in 1939 after the Nationalist forces seized Madrid and won the war. As an architecture student at l’École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, he earned money drawing fashion sketches.
After a short period working in the construction industry with a concrete manufacturer, he launched his fashion careers designing jewellery for Givenchy, Dior and Balenciaga.
Then in 1966, he launched his own eponymous fashion house – Paco Rabanne – which saw him attain international acclaim.
His designs attracted both praise and controversy, and his debut collection, entitled 12 Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials, enraged the French fashion press after it saw models decked out in sharp metals and other unlikely materials.
“I have always had the impression of being a time accelerator,” he said of his designs in 2016. “Of going as far as is reasonable for one’s time and not indulge in the morbid pleasure of the known things, which I view as decay.”
In 1968, he signed a deal with the Catalonia-based Puig family, who were heavyweights in the fashion and fragrance industry. The deal marked his entrance into the perfume industry, which would eventually become synonymous with his name.
His debut fragrance, Calandre, is still available today, while Lady Million – known for its colourful gold bottles – maintains its grip over the market.
His innovations extended to every aspect of his business. He was one of the first fragrance designers to launch one of his products online in the mid-1990s.
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