Paco Rabanne

Francisco "Paco" Rabaneda Cuervo, (more commonly known under the pseudonym of Paco Rabanne) (French: [pako ʁaban]; Spanish: [ˈpako raˈβan]; born 18 February 1934) is a Spanish fashion designer of Basque origin who became known as l'enfant terrible (unruly child) of the 1960s French fashion world. He started his career in fashion by creating jewelry for Givenchy, Dior, and Balenciaga and founded his own fashion house in 1966. He used unconventional material such as metal, paper, and plastic for his Metal Couture and outlandish and flamboyant designs. Rabanne is known for the green costume worn by Jane Fonda 1968 science-fiction film Barbarella. Françoise Hardy was a big fan of Rabanne's designs. The popular French singer Mylène Farmer continues to bring the extravagance of Paco Rabanne to her live concerts. In 2005, Rabanne opened in Moscow, Russia, the first exhibition of his drawings. His reasoning for showing the drawings then was, "I am 72 years old and I wanted to present my drawings this year before disappearing from this planet. I have not shown them to anyone except Salvador Dalí 30 years ago who told me to keep going." One of the black-and-white sketches depicts a child letting go of a dove and a white balloon into the sky, which he said was inspired by the commemoration ceremony for the 2004 Beslan attack in Beslan, North Ossetia, in which 319 hostages were killed, including 186 children, 12 servicemen, and 31 hostage-takers. Rabanne wanted the money that the drawing sold for to go to the women of Beslan. Rabanne was born 18 February 1934 in the Basque town of Pasajes, Gipuzkoa province. His father, a Republican Colonel, was executed by Francoist troops during the Spanish Civil War. He fled Spain for France with his mother after the Francoists won the war, in 1939. His education was originally in architecture.