Fashion designer Paco Rabanne dead at 88

Paco Rabanne.

Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne, known for his eccentric clothing designs and for founding one of the world’s best-known fragrance brands, died on Friday at the age of 88. 

Rabanne’s death was confirmed to AFP by the parent company of his brand, who said he had “marked generations with his radical vision of fashion and his legacy will live on”.

“Paco Rabanne made transgression magnetic. Who else could induce fashionable Parisian women to clamour for dresses made of plastic and metal?” said Jose Manuel Albesa, of Barcelona-based Puig, which owned Rabanne’s label since the 1960s.

Rabanne was a key figure in the space-age fashion movement of the 1960s, known for using metal and other unlikely materials in his outfits. 

He teamed up with Puig in 1968 and they released their first fragrance together a year later, leading to a perfume line that remains one of the most globally popular today. 

“A major personality in fashion, his was a daring, revolutionary and provocative vision, conveyed through a unique aesthetic,” said chairman Marc Puig in the statement. 

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred

In times of uncertainty you need journalism you can trust. For 14 free days, you can have access to a world of in-depth analyses, investigative journalism, top opinions and a range of features. Journalism strengthens democracy. Invest in the future today. Thereafter you will be billed R75 per month. You can cancel anytime and if you cancel within 14 days you won’t be billed.