Rabanne

At Rabanne (I still can’t get used to the cropping of Paco), a palpably different current coming from Julien Dossena. “I was craving just to do clothes. Maybe because of the climate of the world,” he said. Instead of sending down the runway another chainmail splendor, this season he’d been inspired by looking “at how girls are dressed when I see them walking around Paris, and on the metro coming to work every day,” he said. “I was really interested in just observing people. It’s a sort of collage of stuff, mixing everything together; a personal kind of intimacy with what makes people most individual.” The pick-and-mix of it, layers upon layers of cardigans, Argyle sweaters, miniskirts, shirts, jackets, trousers, and biker overalls, was a masterclass in how to make a zillion clashing patterns work together as if you haven’t tried too hard. Très parisien.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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At Rabanne (no longer Paco), Julien Dossena had a mesmerizing collection featuring nomadic warrior women in chainmail armours (occasionally weaved with peacock feathers) and gilded textures. “I’ve never been that interested in the bourgeoisie,” the designer quipped backstage. “I can play on the codes but it’s about exploration for me.” Going by the pictures Jean Clemmer shot for Paco Rabanne in the 1970s, Dossena imagined a kind of warrior beach woman whose wardrobe was founded in ancient constructions. “It’s a woman by the sea, black and white, in the sun with a little loincloth and a jewel. It’s an exalting sensuality. It was a strength I wanted to work on,” he explained. As a meta inspiration element, he printed the pictures on tank tops. The look materialised in hooded mini chainmail dresses, sarouel trousers – “the original first clothes we ever wore: a square with two tubes” – and rustic, organic textures Dossena attributed to the work of the artist Sheila Hicks. “Like a carpet you’ve made a dress [out] of,” as he put it. “I wanted everything to be handcrafted: the feeling that someone touches it; sensual; destroying the fabric; threads.” It made for an ancient sensibility that felt kind of sci-fi. Dossena’s time-travelling looks gave off everything from Athena to Amazon to gladiator to Joan of Arc. “Tender and strong,” he said. “It’s a kind of community: a tribe, a gang of women who express their own sensibility and sensuality.”

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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