MADRID (AFP) – Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne, who founded one of the most well-known fragrance companies in the world and was recognised for his unusual apparel creations, passed away in Portsall, France on Friday at the age of 88.
The parent company of Rabanne’s brand announced his passing to the media without revealing his cause of death, stating that he “marked generations with his bold vision of fashion and his legacy will go on.”
“Paco Rabanne made transgression magnetic. Who else could induce fashionable Parisian women to clamour for dresses made of plastic and metal?” stated Jose Manuel Albesa, representing Puig, a Barcelona-based company that has controlled Rabanne’s label since the 1960s.
Rabanne, a significant character in the 1960s space-age fashion movement, was noted for his use of metal and other unusual materials in his clothing.
In 1968, he teamed up with Puig, and a year later, they jointly debuted their first scent. This collaboration resulted in the creation of one of the most well-known perfume lines in the world today.
“A major personality in fashion, his was a daring, revolutionary and provocative vision, conveyed through a unique aesthetic,” said chairman Marc Puig in the statement.