The new Paco is Manish

Illustration: Piet Paris

Paco Rabanne (Spain, 1934) firmly believes in reincarnation. Let’s hope Manish Arora shares the same believe. Recently the Indian designer “reincarnated” as Paco Rabanne, where he started working as creative director for the label that became famous in the sixties with metal dresses and an iconic chain-mailbag.

It was in the swinging sixties, to be precise  in 1967, when Rabanne, who had studied architecture and worked as a jewelry designer for Dior, Balenciaga and Givenchy, created his first mini-dresses made from countless metal and plastic plates. They were worn by – as Rabanne said later – the Jeanne D’Arcs of the sixties. Indeed, only the brave dared to wear his provocative dresses that generated lots of press. Not everybody was enthusiastic about his work, one lady named Coco Chanel called him “that metalworker”.

Paco Rabanne’s breakthrough came in 1968 when Jane Fonda wore his futuristic designs in the movie Barbarella. French Yé Yé singer and sixties style-icon Françoise Hardy looked like she had landed from the moon in an innovative golden Rabanne dress.  Begin eighties, with the arrival of the new fashion gods such as Thierry Mugler en Claude Montana with their sculpted looks, Rabanne’s metal constructions suddenly looked tacky and old fashioned

In 2000, Rabanne left his label, and six years later the house closed their clothing line. But not before a string of artistic directors had attempted to, unsuccessfully, revamp its ready-to-wear collection.

Manish Arora started his fashion career in 1997.  Vivid colours became his trademark, and handcrafts, like embroidery, based on his Indian roots. “Unknowingly, Paco Rabanne´s and my ideologies have a lot in common. We’ve both worked with unconventional materials and are known for taking things to the next level. We’ve had similar inspirations, used similar techniques and have worked with architectural structures.”

The first collection created by Arora for Paco Rabanne was showed last October. Outstanding were hourglass sculpted jackets decorated with curly metal snakes, combined with sexy tight metallic pencilskirts. Sure, New Dehli based Arora reworked Rabanne’s metal signature dress in different ways. Amazing was a hat like a flying saucer that recently landed on the head of Lady Gaga, who wore it during the MTV Awards. Meanwhile we all know, if the Lady loves something, the rest of the planet will follow.

Published on Mykromag.blog