Designer of the Week - Paco Rabanne

Francisco "Paco" Rabaneda Cuervo, more commonly known as Paco Rabanne (born 18 February 1934) is a Franco-Spanish fashion designer. He fled Spain for France with his mother when the Spanish Civil War broke out. He originally had an architect's education but became known as l'enfant terrible of the French fashion world in the 1960s.

Rabanne started his career in fashion by creating jewelry for Givenchy, Dior, and Balenciaga. He started his own fashion house in 1966. He used such unconventional materials as metal, paper and plastic for his outlandish and flamboyant designs.

Paco Rabanne is known for his costume designs for such films as Barbarella. Also Françoise Hardy was a big fan of Rabanne's designs. The popular French singer Mylene Farmer continues to bring the extravagance of Paco Rabanne to her live concerts.

Rabanne also has an interest in paranormal phenomena. He became infamous for his false prediction of the Russian space station Mir falling on Paris in 1999.
In 2005, Rabanne opened the first exhibition of his drawings, located in Moscow. 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 Dali 30 years ago who told me to keep going." One of the black and white sketches depicts a child letting go of a white balloon and a dove into the sky. The scene was inspired by the commemoration ceremony for the Beslan attack, 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.

Françoise Hardy in Paco Rabanne dresses