SUPER FUTURE
HE’S THE DESIGNER THAT OTHER DESIGNERS WATCH... and WITH GOOD REASON. SARA McALPINE MEETS JULIEN DOSSENA, THE MAN SHAKING up PACO RABANNE
Meet Julien Dossena – the designer driving Paco Rabanne into a new era
Julien Dossena’s brow is furrowed. He looks deep in thought, with one hand half-obscuring his face (one that, it’s worth noting, is conspicuously handsome: Hollywood handsome, in fact, with dark, intense eyes and Robert Redford laugh lines). Today Dossena wears the low-key uniform of every preternaturally cool male designer: a plain black T-shirt, blue jeans and Adidas trainers. But it’s a studied cool: his Prada T-shirt is immaculate; the trainers appear box-fresh; and the socks, by Carhartt, are the kind of white you’d expect to see in a Daz advert.
That’s because Dossena is a master at making the complicated appear casual — a skill he masterfully employs at Paco Rabanne, where he has been artistic director since 2O13, transforming the fortunes (and reputation) of the 53-year-old fashion house.
Dossena laughs when I suggest he makes it look easy.
‘I am a really doubtful person,’ he admits, before letting his eyes fall to a spot that marks an otherwise-pristine table in Paco Rabanne’s white-walled HQ in Paris. ‘But I’ve always valued hard work. Sometimes stupidly, in the sense that I don’t believe in talent, just hard work. That’s the only reason I’m confident about what I do as a designer. I was surprised, when I was hired.’
Actually, a lot of people were surprised when Dossena was named creative director of Paco Rabanne six years ago. After all, he was quite unknown when he stepped in. Then again, so was the brand, certainly to a younger generation more familiar with its perfumes (the sweet Black XS and punchy 1 Million). But that wasn’t the case in the 196Os, when Paco Rabanne (real name Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo) rocketed to success with his space-age styles: chainmail mini-dresses and costumes for 1968 sci-fi film Barbarella. Half a century later, the brand was considered wacky at best and, at worst, irrelevant as its founder began focusing on art — and prophesying the apocalypse. Its fate as a fashion house seemed sealed when the Basque-born couturier retired in 1999. ‘It was really like… bwoufffff,’ Dossena says, stretching his hands from his temples, as if to suggest it was unfathomably madcap. (The press certainly thought so, nicknaming Rabanne ‘Wacko Paco’.)
Everything has changed under Dossena’s direction. The brand once again has commercial appeal (albeit following a few false starts with parent group Puig struggling to retain two designers prior to this: Manish Arora and Lydia Maurer, both lasting a year). Dossena proved the right person to reimagine the brand’s forward-thinking past, making it appeal to a new generation of customers. And he was only 3O when he stepped in. Yet he already had a proven track record as senior designer at a multimillion-pound fashion house.
Dossena was previously a star behind-the-scenes at Balenciaga, working alongside Natacha Ramsay-Levi as the right-hand to thencreative director Nicolas Ghesquière. There, they drove forward French fashion with easy-to-wear separates in futuristic fabrics that stood out against the classic Parisian behemoths: Chanel, Dior and
Saint Laurent. ‘The Paris scene was a bit boring before Nicolas,’ Dossena remembers. He hastily waves his hands to reiterate that he’s not being dismissive of the French monoliths (he has a habit of correcting or qualifying his statements with appeasing gestures and a broad smile). ‘It’s just that there were no young brands, so I was obsessed with Balenciaga,’ he adds – as many young designers were. Ghesquière and Ramsay-Levi were swiftly rewarded for making Balenciaga one of the most exciting labels of the 21st century, with Ghesquière landing the top job at Louis Vuitton, overseeing womenswear, and Ramsay-Levi the creative director at Chloé. Dossena’s reward? The recognition that has come from transforming Paco Rabanne’s ready-to-wear business.
In the six years Dossena has been at the house, he’s stripped away the kitschy futurism. Under his watch, Paco Rabanne now operates with a covert radicalism, lying in the ‘super precise’ way pieces are cut, sitting with ease on the body. His skill is just that: making the elaborately crafted appear easy and, importantly, cool. From gym wear and tailoring to slinky slips, baroque base layers and vacuumpack-tight takes on classic pointelle knits, the clothes he designs are simple to wear and simple to style (despite one crystal dress from the AW19 collection taking 144 hours to make). That skill is something he credits to his time at Balenciaga, which he references fondly as we speak. ‘I would still be there if Nicolas was,’ he admits.
But Ghesquière acrimoniously broke away from the brand in 2O12, embroiled in a $9.2 million lawsuit. So that wasn’t an option.
‘I learnt a lot from that, witnessing when it ended,’ Dossena ruminates. He recalls how his time there equipped him to steer Atto – his own short-lived label committed to sharp suiting, launched in 2O13 – and then Paco Rabanne. ‘I was known as “the pants guy”,’ he laughs. To put being ‘the pants guy’ into context, back then, Balenciaga was the progenitor of ‘It’ trousers. The past decade’s cargo pants revival? Thank Balenciaga for that. The casualisation of precision-cut slimline tailoring? That too. This all happened in just four years, with Dossena spotted as a uniquely talented intern when he joined the brand in 2OO8, rapidly rising to become senior designer. ‘Julien was one of the youngest in the studio,’ Ghesquière remembers now, still championing Dossena and cheering from the sidelines — well, from the front row — of every Paco Rabanne show. ‘You could tell it was a vocation, that his future was going to be as the creative director of a house. He had a focus and a work ethic that was beyond his years.’
That work ethic has seen Dossena drive monumental growth at Paco Rabanne, narrowing the revenue gap between its ready-to-wear and multimillion-pound fragrance business. Stockists have doubled in the past year; profits have seen double-digit growth in the past three. And it’s developed a steady following of high-profile fans, from Kelela and Rihanna to Priyanka Chopra and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, proving the versatility of Dossena’s work. It might still be the brand for affordable gifts and sweet starter scents for teens, but it’s now also a go-to for printed wrap skirts, Instagrammable metal-plate bags and logo T-shirts (its purple tie-dye top with the slogan ‘Lose Yourself’ was one of the shirts of the summer).
To understand Dossena’s early aspirations is to understand what makes him successful now. Growing up in Le Pouldu, a rocky beach town in Brittany, Dossena found art before he found fashion. ‘I figured that I could be a curator. I was excited by art,’ he remembers, explaining his decision to study art history at École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués Duperré in Paris before studying for a Masters in fashion at Le Cambres in Brussels. In fact, whenever the conversation lands on art, Dossena grows increasingly animated. In seconds, he works up the energy of a shaken fizzy drinks can, punctuating the conversation with nods, and cries of: ‘Yes!’
While Dossena has an artist’s sensibility, the commercial pressure is on: Puig has set the ambitious target for Paco Rabanne to reach €1 billion in revenue by 2O2O (to put that into perspective, Balenciaga only recently achieved this, and Saint Laurent is worth €1.7 billion). ‘He looks very confident, very relaxed, very cool,’ explains former colleague and friend Natacha Ramsay-Levi (herself a Paco Rabanne customer). And he does. That being said, no one is immune to pressure. ‘I’ve developed something that I need to figure out. I’m anxious; I can’t take planes anymore,’ he says, before perking up and seeing the sunny side. ‘But I went to New York by boat, which was really cool,’ he says, with the trip inspiring a series of transportive collections, referencing Paris via Palm Springs, with hints of 197Os David Bowie and Roxy Music. As our time draws to a close, I ask Dossena if he is happy. And he flashes that Hollywood smile. ‘Oh yes,’ he says, nodding emphatically. ‘Yes. You’ll see. Next season will be joyful. Colourful and joyful.’ Which it was, appearing on the catwalk four weeks after we meet. And it was one of the most anticipated – and applauded – shows of Paris Fashion Week.
“I DON’T BELIEVE IN TALENT– just HARD WORK. THAT’S THE ONLY REASON I’m CONFIDENT IN WHAT I DO”