Scene setting: Paco Rabanne’s signature chainmail dresses have a sense of disco drama. When the brand’s founder was designing in the mid-1960s, his shimmering and Space Age-silhouettes would have danced with the light reflected by a disco ball at nightclubs like Le Sept and Le Bus Palladium. For S/S creative director Julien Dossena drew on this discothèque dazzle, erecting a long catwalk at the Grand Palais, with a ceiling constellation of heat radiating lightbulbs. Catwalk show meets disco inferno!
Mood board: Since Dossena took the creative reigns of the house in 2013, he’s been successfully carving a contemporary identity for the house, that isn’t simply just rooted in the chainmail dress. Take last season, when he added bourgeois classics into his collection, like white shirts and pea coats. His S/S 2019 offering had more belly dancing-dazzle, with chainmail sarongs and vests twinkling with Moroccan motifs and waists jangling with belts strung together from gold coins. This was the artful Paco Rabanne girl discovering the desert or the inner depths of a bazaar, sporting silk nightgowns, clingy tube skirts overlaid with chainmail or skirts crafted from floral paillettes, metallic jacquard suits and tie-dye tees. In 1968, the brand’s founder dressed Jane Fonda in a green suit for science fiction film Barbarella. Dossena’s S/S 2019 collection was a wonderful denouement of how Paco Rabanne will resonate into the future.
Finishing touches: Those gold coins appeared on gold chains, which wrapped around the neck, paired with soft chainmail shoulder bags, wood block sandals and small party girl handbags cut from leather sequins resembling graphic flowers. §
Paco Rabanne S/S 2019.
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