Fashion Designer Known For Perfumes and Eccentric designs, Paco Rabanne Dies at 88
Impressive fashion designer Paco Rabanne, who created looks for films such as Two for the Road and Barbarella died at the age of 88. While he has passed away at his home in Portsall, Ploudalmézeau, France on Feb. 3, 2023, his eccentric and iconic looks will still live on forever. Born Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo, he later changed his name to Paco Rabanne for numerical reasons due to his beliefs in the spiritual and paranormal.
Born in 1934, his mother was a chief seamstress at Cristóbal Balenciaga’s first couture house. In the ’50s, Rabanne studied architecture but earned money on the side by making fashion sketches for Givenchy and Dior, eventually taking a job in architecture for 10 years. Yet, he couldn’t stay away from fashion and accessories and went back to Dior and Givenchy and created jewelry for the high-fashion brands. He started his own fashion house in 1966, using often unconventional and never-before-used materials in the fashion industry for his designs.
Eccentric fashion designer Paco Rabanne passed away at 88 years old
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Rabanne designed the green dress many nostalgia lovers remember Jane Fonda wearing in the 1968 film Barbarella. Over the course of his career, Rabanne has been called futuristic, eccentric, and a fashion revolutionary. In ’69, he began working with scents and created the popular perfume Calandre. Some of his other fragrances include XS, 1 Million, and Lady Million, still well-known today. Ever the creative, Rabanne wrote books including Journey: From One Life to Another and The Dawn of the Golden Age: A Spiritual Design for Living, and also opened exhibitions of his drawings.
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However, many thought Rabanne was a bit crazy, as he was often making headlines for his outlandish claims. Over the years, he claimed to have been visited by God and Jesus, to have lived several lives, that Mir space station was going to crash in France, and to have been visited by aliens. Not much is known about his personal life and relationships but his legacy lives on in his designs and fashion brand. Taking a look at the website, you can tell that his original visions have not been lost. There are outfits made of what looks like metal brackets, bright colors, and styles that mix and match. His perfumes, jewelry, and accessories are still available for purchase. Do you own any Paco Rabanne pieces or perfumes?
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August 2019
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