Throughout his career, the couturier, who assiduously practiced esotericism, also stood out for a number of eccentric statements and hazardous predictions.

Which did not prevent the man from being funny and endearing.

"I have been dealing with esotericism since my earliest childhood. My mother was very pragmatic but my grandmother was a shaman. She introduced me to knowledge of the world very early. Fashion allowed me to earn a living but it was not really my center of interest”, he confided in an interview in 2005.

Born on February 18, 1934 in the Spanish Basque country, in San Sebastian where his mother was first hand at Cristobal Balenciaga, Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Paris, architecture section.

His father, General Rabaneda-Postigo, who commanded the Guernica garrison, was shot by Franco's soldiers in 1936. In 1939, the family took refuge in France.

Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne in March 1967 © - / AFP/Archives

Paco Rabanne began his career by creating accessories, jewelry, ties, buttons that he offered to Dior, Saint-Laurent, Cardin.

Before embarking on fashion in turn to bring it to life in line with new materials and techniques.

In 1966, he presented his collection made up of "12 importable dresses in contemporary materials" in a provocative parade where black models, dancing barefoot, paraded for the first time.

Success was immediate, but his first models weighed 30 kg and bruised the flesh.

The same year, singer Françoise Hardy made the cover of "Elle" in one of her white plastic rectangle swimsuits.

"Astonish us!"

In his Parisian studio, dressed summer and winter in a dark smock over matching trousers, Paco Rabanne knits mink, cuts fox tails into slices to make flowers, uses rhodoïd, laser disc patchwork, jersey metal and chain mail.

In 1968, he signed a license contract with the Puig family, Barcelona perfumers, for the exploitation of perfumes and launched "Calandre", the first of a successful series.

Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne in his studio, March 20, 1968 in Paris © - / AFP/Archives

Since 1986, the Puig group, which also owns Nina Ricci, the Carolina Herrera brands and Prada and Comme des Garçons perfumes, has owned the entire house.

The couturier also works for the cinema by participating in the creation of costumes for films such as "Two or Three Things I Know About Her" by Jean-Luc Godard or "Barbarella" by Roger Vadim.

A strapless dress made up of discs for the Haute Couture autumn-winter 1996 collection by Paco Rabanne, July 10, 1996 in Paris © PIERRE VERDY / AFP/Archives

Believing in reincarnation, half-medium, half-preacher, he willingly recounts having, the first time, made love with the Earth by digging a hole in the ground.

He claims to have had several lives (including that of a whore from the Palais-Royal, mistress of Louis XV), to have seen God and received visits from extraterrestrials.

In 1999, he announced in one of his books the destruction of Paris by the fall of the Mir station based on a very personal reading of the prophecies of Nostradamus.

The same year, the house ceased its haute couture activity to refocus on ready-to-wear.

Gradually taking the distance, Paco Rabanne continued to appear in the juries of fashion festivals where he liked to deliver his message to the younger generation.

Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne, September 3, 1995 in Paris © Pierre BOUSSEL / AFP/Archives

"We pass the baton to you. Be daring as we all were in our time with Pierre Cardin, Saint Laurent or Courrèges! Dare again and again! Surprise us! 'has no right to copy,' he said.

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