Iconic Paco Rabanne design exhibited at Estoril Fashion Art Festival
Paco Rabanne is making all the stops necessary for a big comeback. The legendary fashion house of Paco Rabanne was huge in the 60’s when Paco Rabanne himself was designing the collections. He was known for avant-garde futurism and using unconventional materials, metal being his favorite. Certainly an innovator, Coco Chanel has once famously labeled him a metalworker, to which Rabanne responded by creating the iconic 1969 chain-mail bag.
Like many Parisian fashion houses of that time, Paco Rabanne has slowly lost it’s steam until finally shuttering in 2006 with fragrances remaining the only Paco Rabanne product still on the market. With such big history and expectations attached to the Paco Rabanne name, the comeback has to be big and bold.
As a first step, the Paco Rabanne fashion house teamed up with Comme des Garçons for relaunching Rabanne’s iconic 1969 chain-mail bag. A capsule collection of the bags, some of which reinterpreted by Rei Kawakubo, is set to hit the Comme des Garçons stores in January.
Paco Rabanne (R) and Pierre Cardin (L) after receiving the Legion of Honor at Ministere de la Culture in 2010
With Paco Rabanne himself serving only as a consultant to the Paco Rabanne fashion house, the brand still needs a head designer for relaunching womenswear. And now it seems like they found the perfect match. Manish Arora, a leading Indian luxury designer, by all rumors and sources is the newly appointed head designer of Paco Rabanne ready-to-wear.
Manish Arora makes sense. Also an innovator, Arora uses bold color, crystals, beads and sequins to create his collections. And you can definitely his love for futurism and appreciation for avant-garde in his designs. After all, even Manish Arora described his Fall 2010 collection as futuristic Art Deco.
Manish Arora Fall 2010 look | Image via Vogue Russia
Manish Arora presenting his Spring 2010 collection in Paris
