300 and sixty-seven gleaming ‘pastilles’ of steel, every one hooked up collectively by hand, make up Rabanne’s ‘1969’ chainmail purse, an emblem of the eponymous designer’s utopian imaginative and prescient for vogue which – alongside André Courrèges and Pierre Cardin – would outline the Area Age spirit of the Nineteen Sixties. ‘I defy anybody to design a hat, coat or gown that hasn’t been performed earlier than,’ Paco Rabanne stated in 1966. ‘The one new frontier left in vogue is the discovering of latest supplies.’ Metallic would turn out to be his favoured medium, creating items in chainmail and steel paillettes that appeared descended from one other planet.
‘If you put on Rabanne chainmail, it’s actually a sense. There’s a sensation between the garment and the pores and skin,’ present inventive director Julien Dossena advised Wallpaper* within the September 2023 Model Difficulty. ‘He was combating towards the outdated guidelines, the outdated world. Even aesthetically, he didn’t perceive couture, and he didn’t wish to perceive.’
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Julien Dossena on the ‘1969’ bag
The ‘nano’ model of the ‘1969’ bag (out there at Selfridges), which now has quite a few iterations – together with these adorned with raffia, medals and pendants
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Rabanne)
That stated, the ‘1969’ purse had extra humble beginnings, its start line a metal apron historically worn by butchers in France to guard them from the sharp implements of their commerce. Utilizing only a pair of pliers – of a kind nonetheless used to connect the bag’s hooks and pastilles in the present day – the apron’s protecting disks had been recrafted into the easy, foldover bag. Its unique handles had been created from the handles of bathroom flush chains, recalling Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades.
’It was by itself a logo of design within the twentieth century, and has turn out to be timeless – tremendous fascinating, culturally charged and radical on the identical time,’ says Dossena because the ‘1969’ bag turns into central to his evolution of Rabanne, which final 12 months noticed the home drop the ‘Paco’ (there was additionally the launch of a Diane Kendal-led Rabanne make-up line in equally Area Age packaging, and a clothes and homeware collaboration with H&M, which included sequin-disk door curtains and lamps). ’It was not even a query to revive it as a result of it was residing its life already.’
Of its specific attraction – which has seen quite a few iterations, together with the ‘nano’ and ‘mini’, the latter the scale of an iPhone – Dossena credit the best way it evokes ‘a life-style, hedonistic and avant-garde, sensual and modernist’. Certainly, its sinous kind is designed to hint the road of the physique – like the home’s chainmail robes, immortalised by Jane Fonda in Barbarella – and was worn by figures of French cinema like Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. So distinctive was its design within the late Nineteen Sixties and early Seventies, it wanted no label or brand (one thing that endures over half a century on). Wearers additionally speak of a signature ‘swish’ sound upon motion.
The making of a ‘1969’ bag, the place every ‘pastille’ is linked by hand utilizing pliers
(Picture credit score: Courtesy of Rabanne)
‘It’s all handmade,’ says Dossena of the bag’s distinctive model of savoir-faire. ‘The rings which hyperlink the steel items are all opened and closed with a plier. It’s actually demanding craft [but it] creates that magic articulated liquid-like steel.’
As for the way he hopes a girl would possibly really feel sporting the ‘1969’ – which he introduced again at the beginning of his tenure – he hopes it displays the liberated spirit of the period wherein it was created. ‘I hope they really feel like they’re sporting a rare piece of craft,’ he says. ’I need them to be happy to combine it with their very own garments.’ Summer time 2024 sees the addition of 1969 luggage adorned with vibrant raffia fringing, gobstopper ‘pampille’ pendants and golden medals (an apt accent for an Olympic summer season).
It’s all a part of the evolution of Rabanne that has taken place beneath Dossena’s ten-year tenure, a relative lifetime within the ever-turning merry-go-round of designer appointments and exits. ‘Now, there’s a notion of the model that’s fully completely different [to when I started],’ he stated final 12 months. ‘First, it was the business insiders that had been sceptical about what Rabanne may very well be. Then we received them on facet. Now, Rabanne goes mainstream. I can really feel the evolution.’
The ‘1969’ bag is obtainable from Rabanne’s web site, in addition to at Selfridges.
vogue.rabanne.com
Supply: Wallpaper
