PARIS — Of all the designers living in a material world, Paco Rabanne figures among the most enduring legacies. Having started out in the early 1960s as a jewelry designer for a number of leading couturiers, including Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin and Cristobal Balenciaga, Rabanne’s 1966 debut collection of “Twelve Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials” — housing frocks made from unconventional materials like metal, rhodoid sequins, and vinyl plaques — shook up sartorial conventions and paved the way for his iconic metal ring-linked plastic dresses and chainmail creations. A couple of years later the Spanish-born Rabanne, who trained as an architect, was to dress Jane Fonda for her role in "Barbarella."
A recent Artcurial sale at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris allowed fans and collectors the chance to get up close to a range of his wacky 1980s creations honed from crinkled paper, strips of aluminum, patchwork leather and the like, with many of them resembling costumes from a Sci-Fi movie. The event marked the second Rabanne sale from the vast private collection of opera directors Jacobo Romano and Jorge Zulueta (of Grupo Accion Instrumental) who since the late 1970s have only used Rabanne’s architectural creations in their productions.
In the mix was an evening dress coated in a “gun barrel” finish with oversized cylindrical fake fur-ringed sleeves worthy of a "Star Wars" character; a Surrealist hot pink dress fitted with a brushed aluminum human silhouette; a structural dress honed from rings of suiting fabric edged with faux leather; and a mini made from plaques of reflectors connected by rings.
Top sellers at the sale, entitled "Paco Rabanne II Fashion Materials," included a jacket and shorts ensemble crafted from orange PVC sequins linked by gold rings, which at 3,005 euros, or about $4,100 at current exchange rates, doubled its estimate; a “Cleopatra” dress made from rows of gold cylindrical beads and wiry coils, ending in a fringed skirt (2,379 euros, or $3,250); a chainmail dress with skirt of swan feathers (2,629 euros, or $3,600); and a long sheath crafted from velvet panels covered in red aluminum and gold plastic (1,878 euros, or $2,600).
In the video above, BLOUIN ARTINFO France presents an overview of the pieces by fashion expert Pénélope Blanckaert and auctioneer Isabelle Boudot de la Motte.
