The great fashion designer Paco Rabanne, of Spanish origin, died at the age of 88 in France, in Brittany, announced on Friday February 3 to AFP, the Catalan group Puig, which owns the brand bearing his name.
“With deep sadness, Puig announces the death of Paco Rabanne,” said a press release, confirming information from the regional daily Télégramme.
The great couturier died in the village of Portsall where he lived, a spokesman told AFP.
"A major fashion personality, his vision was bold, revolutionary and provocative, conveyed by a unique aesthetic. He will remain an important source of inspiration for Puig's fashion and fragrance teams, who work together constantly to express the codes radically modern works by Paco Rabanne", said Marc Puig, CEO of the group, quoted in the press release.
"Radical and rebellious spirit"
Jose Manuel Albesa, president of the "beauty and fashion" division of Puig, for his part paid tribute to the "radical and rebellious spirit" of the designer.
"Who else could inspire fashionable Parisiennes to demand plastic and metal dresses? Who but Paco Rabanne could imagine a perfume called 'Calandre' – the word means 'car grille' – and in make an icon of modern femininity?" he added.
Born on February 18, 1934 in the Spanish Basque Country, in San Sebastian where his mother was first hand at Cristobal Balenciaga, Paco Rabanne – whose real name is Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo – was a graduate of 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 had taken refuge in France.
He began his career by creating accessories, jewelry, ties, buttons that he offered to Dior, Saint-Laurent or Cardin.
Before embarking on fashion in turn to bring it to life in line with new materials and techniques.
Paco Rabanne's predictions
Throughout his career, the couturier, who assiduously practiced esotericism, also stood out for a number of eccentric statements and hazardous predictions.
In 1999, for example, he had 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 had ceased its haute couture activity to refocus on ready-to-wear.
Gradually taking the distance, Paco Rabanne continued to appear in fashion festival juries.
Interview on France 24 in July 2007 (EN)
With AFP
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