Julien Dossena‘s autumn-winter 2023 collection for Paco Rabanne was an homage to the late founder of the brand, who passed away this February. In his most convincing offerings for the house, Dossena revisited Rabanne’s design heritage through a contemporary, not overly literal lens. This collection, however, felt more like a straightforward tribute which ranged from Paco Rabanne’s famous space-age era to less-known surreal phase (echoed in Salvador Dali paintings used as prints for the eveningwear; the surrealist was Paco’s friend). There was of course plenty of chain-mail, used in mini-dresses that looked exactly like the ones the brand’s founder did in the 1960s. According to videos from the show that flood social media, all the metallic looks gave comforting, ASMR-sound effect. Indeed, Dossena’s voice felt exceptionally silent in this collection due to its nature. Let’s treat it more like a run-through Rabanne’s legacy, fit for the label’s client in 2023.
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A catwalk built of scaffolding, fenced with metal bars, plenty of grunge notions and kinky latex. Paco Rabanne‘s spring-summer 2023 collection had a surprising twist, as Julien Dossena, the brand’s creative director, departed from his signature romantic-slash-futurist aesthetic. This season, Dossena does not intend to pretend that fashion is detached from what is happening in the world. That’s also why he called this collection “On a Mission.” Latex and PVC, topped with leather straps and chains, looked spicy and highly fetishistic. All the skills of the house went into fabricating a collection which called on the traditional playbook of subversion: grunge slips, punk kilts, fetish rubber, and wipe-clean raincoats, intersected with the house signature silver chain mail. There were also lace, shiny metallic fabrics, experiments with texture and see-through materials that emphasized the power of femininity. The whole “angry Paco” look was crowned with badass, massive combat boots, which were the perfect additions to the tulle ball skirts (very Olivia Rodrigo). Dossena makes no secret of the fact that what’s happening in the world is having a huge impact on him and his work – the war in Ukraine, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. “It’s about this feeling that there’s going to be a fight, and it’s going to be a long one. So, it’s about expressing that passion and giving clothes for the moment to prepare to fight, because that’s what it’s about: no apologies.”
Although Paco Rabanne‘s autumn-winter 2022 isn’t officially couture, it was a suitable start of the Parisian week of haute fashion. Julien Dossena continues to expand his vocabulary for the brand, temporarily leaving behind Rabanne’s heritage chain-mail and digging into personal obsessions. Designers have been doing collections about our hankering for the human touch since Covid set in, but this collection went beyond that. “I wanted it to be conceptual in a sensorial way and not in an intellectual way,” the designer said, stripping his proverbial mood board of any reference that wasn’t about texture or volume. In a (sort of) post-pandemic world where escapism is at an all-time high, focusing so exclusively on here-and-now things like design and fabrication was practically confrontational to the human mind. “The abstract volumes came from the couture register,” Dossena said, referring to the sculptural form language associated with classic haute couture. “But super short, a bit extreme, with really cinched waists, and mixing it with knitwear to make it more, let’s say, contemporary.” On paper, that procedure sounded pretty 1980s, and many of the looks could have been hyper-takes on the decade’s vivacious silhouette. Think Nan Kempner’s style whenever she arrived to Paris. This collection also felt very Balenciaga-by-Nicolas-Ghesquiere, especially autumn-winter 2012 – Dossena was working as the in-house designer back then. The vibrant Paco Rabanne collection is an astute reminder of what we can do with the makings of the material world in a time when the human mind seems hellbent on escaping into immaterial ones.
“We just wanted this super-genuine feeling of wanting the sun on your skin. Of being by the sea, and feeling the warmth and the happiness of it,” Julien Dossena said of his spring-summer 2022 collection for Paco Rabanne. “Because all of those pleasures are what we’ve all been craving for so long. So I thought, let’s just go with it, and have fun with it.” Last week, he and the Paco Rabanne team were vividly capturing all those sybaritic sun-worshipping impulses atop the spectacularly-tiled hexagonal geometric Op Art Hexa Grace installation in Monaco. It made for a brilliantly-chosen platform for showcasing all of the glinting, sinuous glamour of the French jet-set “bohemian ’70s vibe” that he’s re-channeling for 21st century would-be hedonists of the post-pandemic world. Under the baking heat of the Mediterranean sun, out strode a collection Dossena aptly described as “compositions” or “assemblages” that were melded into silhouettes of dresses and skirts over flared trousers, all-over wallpaper and pansy prints, sarongs and scarf belts, and all kinds of inventive ways of reinventing the chainmail and metallic paillettes and sequins that made up Paco Rabanne’s identity in the first place. Amongst all of it was a print collaboration with the Victor Vasarely Foundation, the holder of the legacy of the artist who designed the Monte Carlo public art installation in 1979. “It felt culturally linked to Paco Rabanne” to do that, the designer remarked. Yet cleverly, Dossena’s knack for design takes clothes somewhere that’s never retro. In orchestrating his collections, he does things like wraps chains into necklines and around hips, adds asymmetric lashings of fringe, and knots and drapes crop-tops to reveal skin in ways that never happened in the 1970s. When he comes to quoting Vasarely’s Op Art, his print placement of the original’s circles and 3D illusion grids are set to flatter the body, mathematically graduated to narrow into waists. Besides, bucket hats were never the thing in the ’70s; they are now, but worked by Dossena into his ‘total print’ top-to-toe looks they’ve picked up a fresh sense of sophistication. Season on season, his instincts are steadily taking Paco Rabanne the brand to the place in the sun it rightfully deserves in the constellation of contemporary fashion.
Julien Dossena exits the chainmail comfort zone and re-defines Paco Rabanne in a charming, joyous way for autumn-winter 2021. “The good thing about fashion,” Dossena said, “is that we’re proposing clothes for the next six months. So we hope that in six months’ time, it’s going to be a big party; everyone will be getting out for days and days, nights and nights….”What came out spontaneously was part very Parisian – imagery linked to the hedonistic ’70s and ’80s French Vogue photography of Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton – and part Princess Diana in her Shy Di phase. “Yes, I’ve been watching ‘The Crown‘” says Dossena with a laugh. “And binge-watching the French movies of Chabrol and Buñuel, with all those ladies interacting and having fun with one another.” The maximalist exuberance brought out big white collars on velvet dresses and a Shetland sweater, pie-frill broderie anglaise lace necklines, English-lady tweed coats, and crystal jewelry festooned in abundance across signature Paco Rabanne chainmail. “Really,” the designer concluded, “it’s just about girls enjoying themselves, releasing that vibration of genuine pleasure.”
Design & Culture by Ed 