Paco Rabanne
Francisco Rabaneda is a fashion designer who was born in February 1934 in San Sebastián, which is Spanish Basque country. He went to live in France, fleeing from Spain with his mother during the break out of the Spanish Civil War. Originally he had an architect’s education although he became known for his designs in the high fashion industry, becoming known as the ‘enfant terrible’ of the French fashion world in the 1960s.
Rabanne started in fashion by creating jewellery for Dior, Givenchy and Balenciaga. He began his own Paco Rabanne fashion house in 1966. His design style was flamboyant and he used many unconventional materials ranging from plastic and paper to metal.
Paco Rabanne is known world-wide for designing the costumes for the film Barbarella. Françoise Hardy was a huge fan of Paco Rabanne’s designs.
Paco Rabanne is also known for his interest in paranormal phenomena and his famous false prediction in 1999 is still remembered today, where he predicted that the Russian space station Mir would fall into Paris. Some international media refer to the incident, calling it the “Pacolypse”.
During 2005, Paco Rabanne opened his first ever exhibition to showcase his own political and humanitarian drawings in Moscow. He was quoted as saying: “I am 72 years old and I wanted to present my drawings this year before disappearing from this planet. I have not shown them to anyone except Salvador Dali 30 years ago who told me to keep going.”
Rabanne donated the money raised at his exhibition to the women of Beslan. Some of his drawings depicted the sufferings of those people.
Paco Rabanne has a huge collection of male aftershaves and lotions that have been enjoyed by millions for many years.
