Fashion designer Paco Rabanne dies aged 88

Fashion designer Paco Rabanne has died aged 88, it has been announced.

abanne, whose real name is Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo, founded the famous fashion house named after him in 1966.

Together with French designers Pierre Cardin and Andre Courreges, he contributed to upsetting the status quo of Parisian fashion at the time, earning him the nickname “the fearsome”.

A statement on his official Instagram account said: “Paco Rabanne’s House wishes to honor our visionary designer and founder, who passed away today aged 88. .

“Among the most iconic fashion figures of the 20th century, his legacy will remain an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

“We are grateful to Monsieur Rabanne for establishing our pioneering legacy and defining a future with limitless possibilities.”

Born in 1934 in the Basque Country, he escaped the Spanish Civil War by fleeing to France at the age of five with his mother, a chief tailor in Balenciaga.

He initially studied architecture at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and began his fashion career in the early 1960s with a large collection of plastic buttons and accessories that he sold to firms. high fashion.

Rabanne continued to be one of the leading experimental designers in elite fashion into the 1960s, creating designs with imaginative and unexplored production methods using new industrial materials after the war.

His architectural background and love of space travel is evident in much of his work through his use of metal and sculptural designs.

For his debut haute couture collection in 1966, he introduced “12 wearable dresses in contemporary materials”.

This includes the famous mail chain-inspired mini dress made of silver plastic panels worn over a flesh-colored jumpsuit.

According to the V&A museum, Baroness Helen Bachofen von Echt wore the dress to a party in New York, where she danced with Frank Sinatra.

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His designs have been worn by global stars throughout the years, including Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Blackpink.

The fashion house also achieved commercial success with many of his fragrances, and his first perfume, Calandre, is still sold today.

Lady Million, with its eye-catching gold-capped bottle, remains a best-seller and is widely available.

After three decades in the profession, he retired from design work in 1999.

in 2010, Rabanne was awarded the Officier de la Legion d’Honneur in France, the country’s highest civilian award.