Paco Rabanne was the first stylist to make clothes out of metal, plastic and paper: “unimaginable” materials.
His daring creations invented a new relationship between clothes and the body based on the concept of “non-wearability”: an ostentatious non-wearability explicitly claimed in the name of modernity.
He explains the origins of this nonconformist idea in the mid-Sixties: “… I was following not only the air, but the art of the day. A fantastic revolution, armed with new materials.
Architecture was giving up stone, painting was giving up canvas, sculpture was giving up marble. The galleries were full of Soto’s iron thread, Martial Raysse’s neon and inflatable furniture. In my turn, in a society in the midst of mutation, I chose to use pliers and welding torches instead of needles and thread. Rhodoid circles and aluminium triangles held together by metal rings and studs: scandalous fashion shows of unwearable clothes.”
Unwearability was used as a provocation, in the choice of materials and, above all, in how they were made: juxtaposition of geometric modules assembled with metal rings breaks the illusion of continuous fabric, exposing the body to view intermittently. The entire body exudes seduction, not just the areas typically set aside for viewing by conventional culture.
Paco Rabanne was the first stylist to make clothes out of metal, plastic and paper: “unimaginable” materials.
His daring creations invented a new relationship between clothes and the body based on the concept of “non-wearability”: an ostentatious non-wearability explicitly claimed in the name of modernity.
He explains the origins of this nonconformist idea in the mid-Sixties: “… I was following not only the air, but the art of the day. A fantastic revolution, armed with new materials.
Architecture was giving up stone, painting was giving up canvas, sculpture was giving up marble. The galleries were full of Soto’s iron thread, Martial Raysse’s neon and inflatable furniture. In my turn, in a society in the midst of mutation, I chose to use pliers and welding torches instead of needles and thread. Rhodoid circles and aluminium triangles held together by metal rings and studs: scandalous fashion shows of unwearable clothes.”
Unwearability was used as a provocation, in the choice of materials and, above all, in how they were made: juxtaposition of geometric modules assembled with metal rings breaks the illusion of continuous fabric, exposing the body to view intermittently. The entire body exudes seduction, not just the areas typically set aside for viewing by conventional culture.