Rabanne is a French fashion house founded in 1966 by namesake designer Paco Rabanne. Rabanne served as Creative Director of the brand’s couture division from 1966 to 1999. From 1999 until his death in 2023, he was a Creative Director for the ready-to-wear division. Paco Rabanne passed away in 2023, the same year that the brand’s name was officially changed to Rabanne.
Rabanne’s aesthetic is defined by its founder’s audacity paired with an avant-garde design concept. An example of Paco Rabanne’s innovative vision is the designer’s work with metal and its implementation into leather goods and clothing. Rabanne’s signature aesthetic is exemplified by their leather bags laced with perforated metal discs, a never-before-seen aesthetic that sent ripples through the fashion press. Complementing the metal-infused handbag fascination, Paco Rabanne is also famous for creating clothing out of metal mesh. For a collaboration with Swedish retailer H&M, the team at Rabanne created a Rabanne H&M Sequin-Disc Top Silver/Gold that salutes these signature aesthetics in a paillette construction that is distinct to the collaboration.
As pushing the boundaries of metal manipulation in clothing became synonymous with the Rabanne brand name, their rise also hinged on the success of their fragrances, including Calendre, which launched in 1969, and 1 Million, which launched in 2008. Rabanne’s metal motifs extend to the fragrance bottles, and this history expresses the brand’s lifestyle aspirations, which manifest as candles and home fragrance outfitted in chrome, metal water bottles, housewares, and more.
