#SuzyPFW: Paco Rabanne and Rick Owens: Collision Of Different Times
Paco Rabanne: Mystical, Masterful Women
It is a vaulted dungeon with a chilling history, the place where Marie Antoinette was incarcerated before she was guillotined.
Even in fashion, the cold stone underground dungeon is layered with memories - Alexander McQueen bringing in a pack of wolves; Sarah Burton’s show dripping with blood red roses.
So it was something of a triumph for Paco Rabanne designer Julien Dossena to make his autumn/winter 2020 show an ode to strong women.
They walked purposefully out in clothes that had a medieval twist, from the square collar on an embroidered black coat to the pie-crust collar on a wider, fuller dress. The effect was of a woman decked out for the royal court centuries ago.
Then came the metallics, shaped into long lean outfits, often with the oh-so-fashionable fringes silvered to suggest a medieval fighter.
The references to Paco Rabanne’s own fascination with chain mail were so deftly woven into the show — probably the best treatment ever seen of his heritage. And in many cases it was hard to distinguish metal from lace.
"I took the mystical aesthetic that Paco Rabanne played with when he was doing his designs,” explained Dossena. "I was thinking of a modern priestess, building a community of women — a sorority, playing on that mystical and magical feel."
The designer also saw the brand as a "house of craft and of hand-made things’’ with the intensity of decoration proving the skills of the studio. That included the chunky, clinky, chainmail that seemed to have been given a 21st century lightness.
"We worked it now in aluminium so it’s lighter, and looks like scarves for the hoods or material for big skirts,” explained the designer. “We decorated it like scarves — it looks so light but it’s actually chain mail even for hoods,” the designer continued.
“It’s a collision of different times - a silhouette to make it contemporary, but super refined, even fragile.”
The line joining the Middle Ages, Paco himself and 2020 was so deftly done that the collection seemed exceptional in its deft execution. It was even hard to follow what was hard metal and its soft replica.
I asked Dossena if that apparent flow was deliberate — a skill to make the show seem both ancient and modern. He had a powerful answer.
“The world needs to be strong to carry these values that are deeply feminine,” he said.
“Sometimes silhouettes and attitudes are violent and you need to express that. What is mystical for me is that it is as if we are talking about religion, when historically it was always men in charge. I wanted to give official clothes of ceremony that make women the masters. Not a priestess or a witch. But a feminine strength for those mystical worlds.”
Rick Owens: Car Culture
Rick Owens has no need to be informed about cults. His fashion has always been in that league. But a new passion emerged this season, from a smoky mist on the ground through which the models tramped in their hefty boots to Gary Numan's hit Cars on the soundtrack.
The designer introduced the collection with an ode to Numan, displaying a letter begging for permission to use his music.
It started: “Hi Gary Numan, Rick Owens here, contacting you with great respect. I’m a fashion designer and would you consider letting me use one of the original tracks?"
The request was to play the music to capture “the chilly doomed glamour – for a 58-year-old man at the peak of his all too numbered powers.”
What an introduction to plan a show which the designer called “vaguely grey Bauhaus and Klaus Nomi” the latter referring to the tenor who is most famous for singing backing vocals for David Bowie in the late Seventies.
Klaus Nomi’s giant shoulders that became the light motif of his appearances appeared in the fashion show.
Given that Rick Owens so often celebrated his heroes/heroines, he could not have found a better one for his original expression of clothing.
Shoulders stretched as wide as a car, long cover-up trousers were split up one thigh and the designer had succeeded once again in creating something both personal and highly original.
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