Miami Herald (Sunday)

Lauded rebel fashion designer Paco Rabanne dies at age 88

- BY ELAINE GANLEY Associated Press

PARIS

Paco Rabanne, the Spanish-born designer known for perfumes sold worldwide but who made his name with metallic space-age fashions that put a bold, new edge on catwalks, has died, the group that owns his fashion house announced Friday.

”The House of Paco Rabanne wishes to honor our visionary designer and founder who passed away today at the age of 88. Among the most seminal fashion figures of the 20th century, his legacy will remain,” the statement from beauty and fashion company Puig said.

The newspaper Le Telegramme quoted the mayor of Vannes, David Robo, as saying that Rabanne died at his home in the Brittany region town of Portsall.

Rabanne’s fashion house shows its collection­s in Paris and is scheduled to unveil the brand’s latest ready-towear designs during the upcoming Feb. 27-March 3 fashion week.

Rabanne was known as a rebel designer in a career that blossomed with his collaborat­ion with the family-owned Puig, a Spanish company that now also owns other design houses, including Nina Ricci, Jean Paul Gaultier, Carolina Herrera and Dries Van Noten.

The company also owns the fragrance brands Byredo and Penhaligon’s.

“Paco Rabanne made transgress­ion magnetic. Who else could induce fashionabl­e Parisian women (to) clamor for dresses made of plastic and metal? Who but Paco

Rabanne could imagine a fragrance called Calandre — the word means ‘automobile grill,’ you know — and turn it into an icon of modern femininity?” the group’s statement said.

Calandre perfume was launched in 1969, the first product by Puig in Spain, France and the United States, according to the company.

Born Francisco Rabaneda y Cuervo in 1934, the future designer fled the Spanish Basque country at age 5 during the Spanish Civil War and took the name of Paco Rabanne.

He studied architectu­re at Paris’ Beaux Arts Academie before moving to couture, following in the steps of his mother, a couturier in Spain.

He said she was jailed at one point for being dressed in a “scandalous” fashion.

Rabanne sold accessorie­s to well-known designers before launching his own collection.

He titled the first collection presented under his own name “12 unwearable dresses in contempora­ry materials.” His innovative outfits were made of various kinds of metal, including his famous use of mail, the chain-like material associated with Medieval knights.

Coco Chanel reportedly called Rabanne “the metallurgi­st of fashion.”

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, saluted “an uncommon artist who blew the wind of renewal into the world of haute couture,” his office said.

Paco Rabanne was among the first designers to put Black mannequins on the runway, and in

1983 opened Centre 57, devoted to the Black African and Caribbean diaspora.

Artists, musicians, filmmakers and hip-hop dancers frequented the center for several years, the statement from Macron’s office noted.

”My colleagues tell me I am not a couturier but an artisan, and it’s true that I’m an artisan. … I work with my hands,” he said in an interview in the 1970s.

In the interview given when he was 43 years old and now held in France’s where he led a literacy program and enjoyed hobbies including photograph­y. He was active until a few months before he died, when he had a difficult recovery after a hard fall.

“Bob will be remembered as a tireless and passionate advocate for the candy industry and a

National Audiovisua­l Institute, Rabanne explained his radical fashion philosophy, revealing a dark side of his complex character.

“I think fashion is prophetic. Fashion announces the future,” he said at the time, adding that “the future for me is catastroph­ic.”

Sure enough, the designer predicted a major catastroph­e on Aug. 11, 1999, claiming that the Russian MIR space station would fall on France. Instead, a crowd opened champagne at his Left Bank headquarte­rs for a “survivors’ party.”

Paco Rabanne retired in 2000, and the house didn’t field a runway show for five years, from 2006 until the spring-summer 2012 show.

The president of the Associatio­n of Fashion Designers of Spain, Modesto Lomba, said Rabanne “left an absolute mark on the passage of time.

“Let’s not forget that he was Spanish and that he triumphed inside and outside Spain.” wonderful supporter of our community,” said David Shaffer, co-CEO and chairman of Just

Born, in a statement released by the company.

He is survived by his widow, Patricia; children Sara and Ross; five grandchild­ren and 12 greatgrand­children. His funeral will be private.

 ?? AP ?? This photo provided by Just Born Quality Confection­s shows Ira ‘Bob’ Born. Born, a candy company executive born in New York City who became known as the ‘Father of Peeps’ for mechanizin­g the process to make marshmallo­w chicks, died peacefully on Jan. 29.
AP This photo provided by Just Born Quality Confection­s shows Ira ‘Bob’ Born. Born, a candy company executive born in New York City who became known as the ‘Father of Peeps’ for mechanizin­g the process to make marshmallo­w chicks, died peacefully on Jan. 29.
 ?? TNS ?? Paco Rabanne studied architectu­re in Paris before moving to couture, following in the steps of his mother, a couturier in Spain.
TNS Paco Rabanne studied architectu­re in Paris before moving to couture, following in the steps of his mother, a couturier in Spain.

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