The 60s were a revolutionary phase in fashion design. The image of the woman borrowed from the 50s, with very clear forms, was thrown out in favor of a flat and more geometric silhouette. Traditionalists would hesitate to call him a couturier. He was nicknamed “the fashion bomber” or “the metallurgist”. Paco Rabanne was the first to introduce industrial materials into fashion at the dawning of the 70s, that would engender a veritable rupture with Haute Couture codes. In an economic and social context of massive changes, a period with a tall list of claims, the couturier presented a collection of 12 experimental, unwearable dresses made of contemporary materials in February 1966 at the Hôtel Georges V. Even more disruptive for the public, the styles were made of materials deemed unfit for a garment. The rhodoid and metal styles that he had to make himself with a clamp and a blowtorch were put on black models and sent down the runway. It was the beginning of the “Space Age”, brought towards a new futuristic aesthetic by avant-garde collections. For this collection, each piece was put together in his workshop, by hand. The “Paco Rabanne” signature made its mark, and a couturier was born.
The year before he had created “Pacotiles”, rhodoid accessories (earrings, sunglasses, baseball hats) for in vogue industrial ready-to-wear stylists. The stars of music and cinema alike saw themselves in this new brand of modernity and helped establish the label’s notoriety, such as Anouk Aimée, Françoise Hardy, and Brigitte Bardot. A successful singer, Françoise, who was particularly tall and thin for the era, characterized the new female silhouette. She would wear one of Paco’s unique creations, “the most expensive dress in the world”, for the inauguration of the International Diamonds exhibit in May 1968. It consisted of a minidress made with nine kilos of gold and 300 carats of diamonds. Composed of a thousand platelets and 5,000 gold rings, it was also adorned with 22 monumental diamonds that edged the neckline. Paco Rabanne would later recall that the dress was guarded by four armed bodyguards.
From 1970, he would enjoy a period rich in experimentation with revolutionary materials and projects like paper dresses or styles made of fluorescent leather, hammered metal, aluminum jersey, and knit fur. These unique creations would be acquired by contemporary art museums like the MoMA in New York, or in the archives of great fashion museums the world over.
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