In 1966 Emmanuelle Khanh, Christiane Bailly, Michèle Rosier and Paco Rabanne were invited to do a ready-to-wear show in New York during the “April in Paris” charity ball.
A French couture house was usually invited to present its collection during this event, but times had changed and new designers producing extremely different creations from the glamorous couture designs had arrived on the scene.
Khanh, Bailly, Rosier and Rabanne carefully planned the event aiming to show that their work marked a huge change in fashion: among the other creations showcased there were a quilted dress with a magnifying mirror on the belly button by Khanh; metal yokes on brown silk by Bailly, an entirely silver collection by Michèle Rosier and shredded plastic hoods by Rabanne.
One of the most striking designs presented was a leather and plastic outfit by Rabanne, showcased under a trompe l'oeil reproduction of the Arc du Carrousel with futuristic music in the background.
Modern fashion currently employs all sorts of materials: Rabanne's chainmail – originally inspired by his father's butcher apron – doesn't even shock us anymore as it had upset Coco Chanel (who called him "the metal worker of fashion"…) and you never hear at contemporary catwalk shows the same sceptical comments you heard at Rabanne's early presentations (legend goes that at the 1966 New York catwalk show I mentioned in the opening of this post a lady in the audience stated “That would rust in Miami”…). Yet it's legitimate to wonder what kind of future will Rabanne have.
The house recently came back on the scene with Manish Arora as its new womenswear designer. In March two small capsule collections were presented in Paris, one featuring a series of chainmail bags (in mink, leather, suede and stingray), the other, including pieces incorporating keys, bottle openers and buttons, was designed by London artists and stylist Judy Blame.
During the latest edition of Paris Fashion Week, Arora finally presented the new Rabanne ready-to-wear collection and the reaction was more or less the same one Rabanne achieved when showcasing that leather and plastic outfit in 1966 – the audience was mesmerised.
Entitled “Femme Lumiere” and presented in the Pompidou Centre, the collection revolved around the theme of light and included chainmail dresses, iridescent organza tops matched with pieces covered in iconic Rabanne oval links or with metal embellishments, beads and liquid textiles that had the same shades of optical fibres and body suits that called to mind Alexander McQueen's Medieval armours from his A/W 2009 collection.
Oversized unidentified flying headdresses (by Philip Treacy – who probably recycled them from the pieces he did for Armani Privé's Spring/Summer 2011 collection) turned the models into aliens, metallic dresses that seemed stitched back together had a futuristic Frankenstein feel about them, exaggerated hourglass waists and sharp shoulder silhouettes à la Thierry Mugler gave a robotic look to the models while nail-like studs transformed tote bags into mechanical sea urchins.
Yet projecting into the future a house founded in the '60s that was drenched in Space Age, proved a bit difficult even for inventive and innovative Arora.
Yes, you could claim that the 1966 Rhodoid dress has been sucessfully renewed thanks to a digital scan and it's now formed by hundreds of silvery python squares in different shapes and sizes, but when in 1966 Rabanne first showcased his collection entitled "12 Robes Importables en Matériaux Contemporains" (“Twelve Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials”) at the George V Hotel in Paris, the designer was also questioning the future of fashion, wondering what would have happened one day to proper textiles.
Robotic, futuristic and iridescent looks are obviously incredibly successful on a runway, but Arora didn't seem to be able to ask any kind of provocative questions à la Rabanne through his pieces. And while he provided a new wardrobe for Lady Gaga and other assorted celebrities, you wonder what will happen once these pieces will be translated into a wearable collection (or if they are just an excuse to sell more fragrances like Mugler's current designs…).
Besides, funnily enough, the final papery pleated dresses in red, green and silver foil, called to mind the "Sound Sculpture Robe" by French brothers Francois and Bernard Baschet featured in the opening scenes of William Klein’s Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo? (1966).
But in his film Klein was poking fun at designers using extravagant and unwearable materials and generally taking the piss out of fashion. Arora's designs – though more wearable than the ones in Klein's film – seemed to move directly from them, creating a vicious circle in which film mocks fashion and fashion copies films mocking fashion (complete of your usual high profile blogger paid to praise this circus, incarnating in real life fictitious Miss Maxwell, the bizarre fashion editor in Klein's film). Strange nobody wrote (yet) about Arora as "the archangel of robots", an expression used by one of the fakely enthusiastic fashion critics in Klein's film.
“When they are fastened they make a sound like the trigger of a revolver”, Rabanne once said about his designs in an interview. Well, at times, dear Rabanne, you actually wished the clothes could shoot like a revolver rather than just sounding like one…
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