Мифтахова Н.Х. Учебник английского языка
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At 8rst the company specialized in the production of work clothes, overalls,
raincoats, and uniforms. From 1933 onward it made uniforms for German
storm troopers, Wehrmacht, and Hitler Youth. Boss brought forced laborers
from Poland and France to his factory to boost output in the following years.
When Boss died in 1948, the factory returned to making uniforms for postal
and police workers. In 1953 it produced its 8rst men’s suits.
By the early 1970s, after several changes in the management and ownership
since the founding of the company, Jochen and Uwe Holy, the grandchildren of
Boss, took over work-wear manufacturing, and the duo started to manufacture
fashion-conscious men’s suits and sportswear. In the following years the new
owners turned Hugo Boss from a work-wear manufacturer into a stylish
clothes company for formal men’s wear. Hugo Boss was the 8rst German
company to construct a brand identity within the men’s wear sector.
After the relaunch of the Boss brand in the early 1970s, the company
developed steadily into an international fashion designer house. In the 1980s,
Hugo Boss constructed a high
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degree of brand awareness through the distribution of licenses and brand
extension in
fragrances, dress shirts, sportswear, knits, and leatherwear. Boss went public
in Germany in 1985. Their formal menswear, in particular, became strongly
associated with the Yuppie.
Family control ended in 1992, and since 1993 Mazzotto S.p.A. in Valdagno,
Italy, has held majority control of Hugo Boss AG. The company operates in
more than ninety countries with a product range including bodywear,
cosmetics, evening wear, eyewear, 8ne clothing, formal wear, fragrances,
hosiery, leisurewear, shoes, and watches. Since control by Mazzotto began,
Hugo Boss AG has applied a three-brand strategy for the men’s wear market
under the labels Boss Hugo Boss, Hugo, and Baldessarini. Boss Man, the
company’s core brand is divided into three subsidiary labels—Black Label
(business
and leisure wear), Orange Label (urban sportswear), and Green Label (outdoor
active wear).
The Hugo brand encompasses an avant-garde collection, which is designed for
business and leisure, and which combines unconventional details with new
materials. The Baldessarini brand is the most sophisticated label, featuring the
8nest Italian fabrics and hand stitching. As a traditional men’s wear
manufacturer, Hugo Boss made an unsuccessful attempt to start a women’s
wear line in 1987. Eleven years later Hugo Boss successfully launched the
female counterpart to the male Hugo label. In 2000 the designer brand
introduced Boss Woman, designed for the sophisticated female
businesswoman.
The Hugo Boss brand is clearly de8ned by a dynamic design with an emphasis
on functionality, clean lines, and attention to details. The Hugo Boss
collections are distributed on the international market through selected
specialty stores and Hugo Boss monobrand shops. The collections are
designed and managed according to a standardized concept that re(ects the
clean, stylish brand image applied at monobrand
shops worldwide. Nevertheless, the company opened a 20,000-square-foot
store in New York City in 2001 that presented all brands and collections under
one roof for the 8rst time.
Текст 12. КРИСТИАН ЛАКРУА.
(из энциклопедии моды «Encyclopedia of Clothing and
Fashion»)
Lacroix embody in spectacular combinations his Provincial roots, his passion
for folklore, and his fascination with the history of clothing. His artfully
unexpected mixtures express a new form of luxury, simultaneously youthful,
baroque, and sophisticated. Lacroix mingles
bright tones and extravagant materials in creations that express a re8ned
blending of diKerent cultures; distant and forgotten costumes form the basis,
if not the raison d’etre, for his work.
Christian Marie Marc Lacroix was born in 1951 in Arles, France. In early
childhood Lacroix showed a (air for design by putting together little albums on
theater and opera, collages assembling family portraits, and reproductions by
Christian Bёrard. He left his native Arles to study the history of art in
Montpellier, and then enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1973. He wrote a
master’s thesis on French costume in the paintings of the
seventeenth century while at the same time taking courses at the Ёcole du
Louvre to become a museum curator. It was at this time that he met his future
wife, Francoise
Rosensthiel; they married in 1974.
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With the encouragement of his wife, he soon turned to fashion design. In 1978
he joined Hermёs, where he learned the technical aspects of the profession.
Two years later he was an assistant to Guy Paulin and then succeeded Roy
Gonzales as a designer for Jean Patou in 1981. In 1986 he received the Golden
Thimble award for dresses designed in honor of his native region of Camargue.
In December 1986 Lacroix met Bernard Arnault, chief executive oQcer of the
multinational luxury 8rm Louis Vuitton Moёt Hennessy (LVMH), who oKered
him the 8nancial support needed to open his own couture house.
The Christian Lacroix house was inaugurated in 1987 at 73, rue du Faubourg
Saint-Honore in Paris. On 26 July 1987 Lacroix presented his 8rst collection
under his own name, and that year the Council of Fashion Designers of
America awarded him the prize for Most In(uential Foreign Designer. Inspired
by dresses in the style of the 1880s, he designed an oK-the-shoulder dress
with a high waist, the miniskirt of which became the emblematic “pouf.”
Completed by a short bolero jacket, the ensemble was cut in highly colored
and decorative fabrics inspired by Provence. Folk and traditional elements
were set oK by a certain French grandeur, coquettishness, and whimsy that
re(ected the desires of a new generation hungry for luxury. Lacroix’s style
thus con8rmed the taste for a typically southern opulence, instilling new life
into French haute couture, which had been stigmatized as a dying art. France
Soir described Christian Lacroix as the “Messiah,” and Time featured him on
its cover. In 1988 the profession awarded him a second Golden Thimble. The
dream collapsed with the stock market crash. The pouf soon became a
metaphor for the excesses of the 1980s, which gave way to the minimalism of
the 1990s.
In his designs, Lacroix nevertheless remained faithful to his roots and his
history in a clothing collection where east meets west, the north basks in the
southern sun, and the past blends with the future. The 1980s had allowed him
to de8ne and focus these in(uences, and over the years he continued to quote
from and vary his sources of inspiration, as he developed and re8ned them.
Lacroix also carried on using a glittering palette of colors. “Colors I have
always liked, so much so that when I was a child, I dreamed of swallowing
tubes of yellow and vermilion paint,” he said. His designs became more
abstract and the dresses more simpli8ed, their architecture more apparent.
Previously, the decoration had been designed before the dress; now it came
into play only after the dress had been constructed. “In reality, I love only
what veers oK course, has a defect, is heterogeneous, transitory,” he said. “I
think I love everything and its opposite. That is probably the key”.
Lacroix has turned his fashion world into a stage, designing for more than
twenty ballets, operas, and plays. In 1996 he was awarded the Moliere for best
costume design for the Comedie Francaise production of Phиdre. In 2000 he
signed a new contract with LVMH, the owner of his couture house. He divides
his time between his responsibilities as artistic director of this couture house
and his own company, XCLX. The list of his projects is long
and varied and his commissions ever more spectacular.
Among his extravagant designs are eight carriages of the TGV Mediterranie (a
high-speed French train), which he “dressed” and presented as haute couture
creations. “This
is what now interests me: going beyond fashion to participate in ways of
living, in our
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global environment, with uniforms [for Air France], seats for the TGV, stage
costumes.
Each of these areas—clothing, theater, design … helps me to express a facet
of my personality”. Spectacle is inherent to his vision: “The Lacroix woman is
staged in a theatrical fashion. She is not afraid of being noticed; for her one
can imagine nothing that is bland.
In 2002 Lacroix was named artistic director of the Florence ready-to-wear
house Emilio Pucci. That year he was awarded the medal of Chevalier of the
Legion d’Honneur. Lacroix describes French haute couture as “eternally dying
and paradoxically constantly being reborn from its ashes”. A great defender of
couture, Lacroix does not conceive of it as an art but rather as a service
rendered to his clientele: “Art is something made for love. Art is what makes
life more beautiful. Something that motivates and inspires. My work has a
purpose; it is not just made for the sake of it”. His creations, brought into
being by a wide range of craftsmen, knitters, corsetieres, painters, and
embroiderers, overwhelm and
plunge the spectator into a world located between dream and reality, where
fantastic textures rival embroidered materials in elegance, where (uid fabrics
wedded to richly
colored costumes speak in a (amboyant vocabulary signed Christian Lacroix.
Текст 13. ВАЛЕНТИНО.
(из энциклопедии моды «Encyclopedia of Clothing and
Fashion»)
Valentino Garavani (1932– ) was born in Voghera, a city in Lombardy, on 11 May. Even
as a young man he was fascinated by fashion and decided to study design in Milan.
When he was seventeen he discovered the extraordinary shade of red that would remain
a design element throughout his career at a premiere of the Barcelona Opera.
Early Career
In 1950 Valentino went to Paris, where he studied design at the schools of the Chambre
Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. He obtained his first position as a designer with Jean
Desses. In 1957 Valentino went to work in Guy Laroche’s new atelier, where he remained
for two years. His training in France provided him with both technical skill and a sense of
taste. In 1959 he decided to return to Italy and opened his own fashion house on the via
Condotti in Rome with financial assistance from his family. In November he made his
debut with his first couture collection, displaying 120 luxurious outfits notable for their
stoles and draped panels that emphasized the shoulders. The Sunday Times of London
was quick to take note of the new designer, singling him out for the refined lines of his
tailoring and the sophistication of his garments.
In 1960 Valentino met Giancarlo Giammetti, who became his business administrator. At
this time he moved his fashion house to via Gregoriana, 54. Valentino quickly became the
favorite designer of the movie stars who were often found at Cinecittа, known as the new
Hollywood during the years of Italy’s economic boom. One of the first stars who wore
Valentino’s clothes was Elizabeth Taylor, who was in Rome for the filming of Cleopatra. In
1960 Valentino signed an agreement with a British firm, Debenham and Freebody, to
reproduce some of his couture designs. That same year he designed costumes for
Monica Vitti in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film La Notte.
In 1963 Valentino’s summer line was photographed on the set of Federico Fellini’s film 8
1/2. Valentino’s collection for fall–winter 1961–1962 featured twelve white outfits inspired
by Jacqueline Kennedy. But what secured Valentino’s fame was the success of his first
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fashion show on the runway of the Sala Bianca in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence in July
1962. For the first time French Vogue dedicated its cover to an Italian designer.
International Success
Valentino’s fall–winter collection for 1963–1964 was inspired by wild animals. American
Vogue published a photograph of the contessa Consuelo Crespi wearing one of his
zebra-patterned models, which anticipated his op art and pop art-inspired collection of
spring–summer 1966.
The 1966 collection has become famous for its prints and geometric designs, its stylized
animals, and its large dots. That same year Valentino started a lingerie line and stunned
his audience with a winter show that included pink and violet furs. Ethel Kennedy chose a
Valentino dress for her meeting with Pope Paul VI in June 1966.
In 1967 Valentino received the Neiman Marcus Award in Dallas, which spurred him to
further develop his creative ideas. The award was the direct impetus for his first men’s
collection, Valentino Uomo. The designer’s accessories, especially his handbags with a
gold “V,” became essential items for the elegant women of the jet set. In 1968 Valentino
introduced his famous Collezione Bianca, a spring–summer line of white and off-white
garments that included suits, wraps, coats, and legwear in white lace. The show took
place at a critical moment in international fashion and helped alleviate the crisis in haute
couture—a crises due to changes in international society in 1968 when people started
looking at less exclusive models. In March of that year Valentino opened a store in Paris,
followed by one in Milan in 1969.
In October 1968 he designed Jacqueline Kennedy’s dress for her wedding to Aristotle
Onassis. He was the most acclaimed designer of the moment and expanded his circle
of clients to include Paola di Liegi, Princess Margaretof England, Farah Diba, the Begum
Aga Khan, Marella Agnelli, Princess Grace of Monaco, Sophia Loren, and many other
well-known women.
Valentino lengthened hemlines and introduced folk and gypsy motifs in the early 1970s.
He started his first boutique line in 1969. It was originally produced by Mendes, although
ready-to-wear production was turned over to Gruppo Finanziario Tessile (GFT) in 1979.
Valentino also opened a prкt-а-porter shop in the center of Rome in 1972. Throughout the
1970s his designs alternated between slender suits and harem pants coupled with maxi
coats. These designs often evoked a Liberty and art deco atmosphere, as in his 1973
collection inspired by the art of Gustav Klimt and the Ballets Russes.
In 1974 he opened new stores in London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo (in the early 2000s
there are twenty five stores throughout the world). In 1976 he decided to show his
boutique line in Paris, while keeping his couture line in Rome. Valentino launched his first
perfume, named Valentino, in 1978. The following year he introduced a line of blue jeans
at a famous discotheque, Studio 54 in New York City, which was publicized through an
advertising campaign photographed by Bruce Weber.
The collections of the 1980s were characterized by sarong skirts gathered on the hip,
draped garments, ruched fabrics, breathtaking necklines, and dramatic slits in a range of
colors that emphasized the famous Valentino red, together with black and white. In 1982
the designer presented his fall–winter collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In
1986 he introduced Oliver, a more youthful line named after his faithful dog, which he
used as a logo. Three years later, Valentino decided to show his couture line in Paris, a
series of garments inspired by ancient and modern art.
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Valentino’s collections of the 1990s integrated the themes of revival and self-reference—
flounces, embroidery, and dots—partly as a way of emphasizing his thirty years in
fashion, which were celebrated in several short films, exhibitions, and books. In January
1998, after a difficult period, Valentino sold his brand to the Holding di Partecipazioni
Industriali SpA (HdP) group run by Maurizio Romiti, although Valentino remained the
creative director. In 2002 HdP sold the fashion house to Gruppo Marzotto.
Elements of Style
Valentino has paid his own personal tribute to contemporary fashion, inventing a
recognizable look, modern yet sophisticated, which balances tradition and innovation
through the image of an iconic femininity that is both classic and chic. Valentino’s designs
have as a common denominator the technical precision of fine tailoring, which he applies
not so much for the sake of innovation but rather to provide a sense of stylistic continuity.
Bows, ruching, and draping are distinctive features of many of his designs, together with
the famous Valentino red.
All these features are used strategically, serving to give the brand its mythic quality.
Valentino’s fabrics are printed with flowers, dots, and his own initial, which has doubled
as a logo since the 1960s, highlighting the interplay between ornamental texture and
effective communication.
A forceful interpreter of the lines and ambiance of the nineteenth century, with references
ranging from the neoclassical with its fine drapery through the Second Empire with its
crinolines, Valentino plays with the idea that his garments serve as a kind of aesthetic
memory, a modern reference to a different time. Because of the designer’s ability to work
with tradition, he has found a unique, although elitist, stylistic solution that has satisfied
sophisticated women throughout the world.
Текст 14. ЛЕВИ СТРАУС.
(из энциклопедии моды «Encyclopedia of Clothing and
Fashion»)
The name Levi Strauss is indelibly linked with a quintessential American
fashion—
blue jeans. The original riveted work pants, called “waist overalls,” were
patented by Levi Strauss in 1873 and became staples of quality, durable
workingmen’s garments for more than 8fty years. In the 1950s blue jeans,
particularly Levi Strauss classic riveted “501’s” emerged as fashion
statements, anticipating the skyrocketing popularity of denims worldwide in
the following decades. The dominance of Levi’s in this fashion phenomena
transformed Levi Strauss & Co. from a successful regional company into one of
the world’s largest clothing brands, with $4.1 billion in total sales in 2002.
While Levi Strauss & Co. has aligned itself more closely with style and fashion
in the twenty-8rst century, its origins were humble and rooted in the dry
goods trade.
Its founder, Levi Strauss, was born “Loeb” Strauss in Buttenheim, Bavaria, in
1829, one of seven children of Hirsch Strauss. In 1847, Loeb Strauss
emigrated to the United States to join his stepbrothers, Jonas and Louis,
owners of a dry-goods business in New York City. Loeb quickly learned the
family trade and by 1850 he had changed his name to Levi.
The discovery of gold in California and the subsequent Gold Rush of 1849
brought throngs of fortune hunters west in the hopes of striking it rich. In
1853, Levi Strauss headed to San Francisco, too, not to pan for gold, but to
establish his own dry-goods business catering to this new workforce.
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Levi Strauss set up his wholesale business selling bolts of cloth, linens, and
clothing at 90 Sacramento Street, close to the waterfront for convenient
access to goods coming oK ships. In the late 1850s and early 1860s, his
enterprise, known merely as “Levi Strauss,” pro8ted, and its steady expansion
forced him to relocate several times to other waterfront
addresses. In 1863 his brother-in-law, David Stern, joined his 8rm, and the
company was
oQcially renamed Levi Strauss & Co. By this time, Levi Strauss was in his
thirties and the 8rm was a pro8table entity providing a variety of goods. The
next decade, however, would
assure Levi Strauss his place in fashion history.
In 1872, Levi Strauss was contacted by one of his customers, Jacob Davis, a
tailor in Reno, Nevada. Davis had discovered a practical and ingenious way to
make work pants stronger by adding metal rivets to the weak points at the
pocket corners and the base of the (y. Davis’s rivets proved successful and his
new reinforced work pants became popular among his local clients. Fearful
that his idea would be copied, Davis wanted to secure a patent, but did not
possess the $68 necessary to 8le for a patent. Instead, he turned to Levi
Strauss, a successful wholesale goods purveyor from whom he often
purchased fabric, and oKered to share the patent if Levi Strauss & Co. would
underwrite the expense.
Levi Strauss recognized the potential in this endeavor and agreed to share the
patent. In 1873, Davis and Strauss received patent #139,121 from the U.S.
Patent and Trademark OQce for an “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-
Openings.” The riveted “waist overalls” (as work pants were then known)
quickly achieved a reputation for strength, quality, and durability among
working men. For twenty years Levis Strauss & Co. held the patent on riveted
waist overalls, thereby curbing competition from other manufacturers. In 1890
the lot number 501 (which it would thereafter retain) was 8rst used to
designate the riveted waist overall. The following year, the patent expired and
went into the public domain,
where riveted waist overalls were quickly copied by other 8rms. However, the
demand for Levi’s waist overalls continued to grow, forcing Levi Strauss & Co.
to open several
manufacturing plants of its own in San Francisco.
By the turn of the century, Levi Strauss was in his early seventies and highly
regarded as a successful businessman and philanthropist. He died in
September 1902, a lifelong bachelor, leaving the bulk of his $6 million estate
to relatives and to his favorite charities. With his four nephews running the
company, Levi Strauss & Co. continued to thrive and became one of the
leading companies producing work pants in the 1920s.
The company’s market, however, was still restricted to predominantly western
states and to the niche of work clothing. In the 1930s and 1940s, Levi Strauss
& Co.’s sphere of in(uence got a boost from Hollywood through western
movies. Popular westerns mythologized cowboys and cowboy dress, including
the waist overalls. It was during this period that denims became associated
with the ideals of honesty, integrity, and rugged American individualism.
After World War II, Americans enjoyed a level of prosperity marked by greater
leisure time. Denims, including Levi’s, began to lose their connection with
manual labor and emerged as appropriate casual dress. Pivotal to the
acceptance of denims was their adoption by teenagers, an increasingly vocal
and important market group. When the actor James Dean wore blue jeans in
the 8lm Rebel Without a Cause, denims attained a completely new status as
cool fashion. By this time, the term “waist overalls” was no longer used;
denims were known as jean pants or simply as “Levi’s.”
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In the 1960s denims continued their evolution as acceptable leisure wear. As a
result, denim producers such as Levi Strauss & Co. and Lee (another former
workingpant
manufacturer) continued to expand. The 1960s was an important decade for
fashion—one which witnessed challenges to the traditional haute couture
system and the
rising popularity of more democratic, street-inspired fashions.
Denims emerged as a symbol of individualism and anti-establishment fashion,
much to the bene8t of Levi Strauss and its competitors. During the height of
the hippie era, Levi Strauss & Co. even sponsored a competition to promote
the personalized decoration of Levi’s jeans.
Founder Levi Strauss could never have foreseen the meteoric rise of Levi
Strauss & Co. in subsequent decades. As tastes changed in the 1970s, denims
were transformed from leisure wear to high fashion at the hands of designers
such as Calvin Klein. Denims now became acceptable dress for all occasions.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, Levi Strauss & Co. dominated the market for blue
jeans, which became a de facto uniform for youth in
America and abroad. Demand for American Levi’s in Europe and around the
globe was widespread. In Eastern block countries American Levi’s jeans even
attained the status of black-market cash in the early 1980s.
The importance of the Levi Strauss brand name in the denim market has been
enormous. Through clever marketing and hip advertisements, Levi’s
capitalized on the revival in popularity of the “classic” 501 button-(y jeans in
the mid 1980s. By 1990, Levi Strauss & Co. was an international manufacturer
with a global market, selling under the brands Levi’s, Dockers, and Slates.
Only in the late 1990s and early years of the twenty-8rst century has Levi
Strauss & Co. seen a slight reversal of fortune.
Changes in taste, from traditional blue to other colors and the revival of retro-
1970s (ared leg and baggy, hip-hop silhouettes has worked against Levi’s
classic-cut jeans in favor of trendy styles marketed by new competitors such
as Tommy Hil8ger and Guess. Since the 1990s, Levi Strauss & Co. has been
forced to restructure its company to remain competitive. Ironically, Levi’s
“classic” denims are no longer manufactured in the United States, the
production having been entirely shifted to overseas manufacturers with
cheaper labor.
Despite competition from the Gap, Tommy Hil8ger, and Guess jeans, Levi
Strauss & Co. remains the standard bearer in the denim world. With roots in
the settling of America’s west, Levi Stauss & Co. has come full circle achieving
(and retaining) iconic status as the
maker of the quintessential American garment, still popular throughout the
world.
Текст 15. ПАКО РАБАНН.
(из энциклопедии моды «Encyclopedia of Clothing and
Fashion»)
Paco Rabanne (1934– ) was born Francisco Rabaneda y Cuervo in Pasages de
San Pedro in the Basque region of Spain. His family (ed to France in 1939
after his father was captured and executed by Francisco Franco’s troops.
Rabanne studied architecture at the
Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-arts in Paris from 1951 to 1963. In 1963
he won an award at the Biennale de Paris for an inhabitable garden sculpture,
which was exhibited at the Musie d’art moderne de la ville de Paris.
181
Early Career
Rabanne’s drawing skills made it possible for him to enter the world of fashion
as early as 1955; indeed, to 8nance his architecture studies, he regularly
supplied drawings of handbags for Roger Model and shoes for Charles Jourdan
until 1963. In 1959 Women’s Wear Daily published seven sketches of dresses
signed “Franck Rabanne.” Though this was the 8rst time the designer’s name
appeared in public, he chose “Franck” because the
number of letters in the 8rst and last names totaled a lucky thirteen. (He did
not begin using the name Paco professionally until 1965.) These dresses bore
the imprint of the style of Balenciaga, whose work was familiar to the young
Rabanne through his mother, a former chief seamstress in the master’s
workshop in San Sebastiбn in Spain.
Rabanne put his artistic gifts and the skills of his family to good use between
1962 and 1966: together they hand-produced unusual buttons and
embroideries for the houses of haute couture. His clients at the time included
Nina Ricci, Cristуbal Balenciaga, Maggy RouK, Philippe Venet, Pierre Cardin,
and Hubert de Givenchy.
In 1965, Rabanne’s creation of oversized rhodoпd jewelry in various geometric
forms and bright colors brought him his 8rst major commercial and media
success. It also established one of the principles of his style: the use of rigid
divisible materials held together by metallic rings or rivets.
Paco Rabanne’s 8rst show took place on 1 February 1966 at the Hotel George
V. This collection, which the designer called “Twelve Unwearable Dresses in
Contemporary
Materials,” was worn by barefoot models parading to the sounds of Pierre
Boulez’s Le marteau sans maоtre, which Rabanne chose to re(ect modernity
and to shock the audience. It was a veritable fashion manifesto and helped to
establish Rabanne’s reputation as a revolutionary.
On 21 April 1966, the dancers of the celebrated Parisian cabaret, the Crazy
Horse Saloon, presented Rabanne’s collection of beachwear made of rhodond
disks or leather. The dancers modeled the unconventional clothes in the form
of a strip tease, creating another scandal. Rabanne also set up his workshop in
1966 at 33, rue Bergere, with a black decor accented with industrial scaKolding
and bicycle seats for chairs.
Experiments in Design
Following the example of contemporary artists who had given up the
traditional media of paint and canvas, Paco Rabanne chose to base his fashion
experiments on a systematic
challenge to the art of cutting and sewing. His work was characterized from
the beginning by a complete rejection of traditional couture techniques in
favor of the exploration of unusual materials and methods of assemblage.
Rabanne followed up his experiments in rhodond with garments made of
metal, making metal something of a distinctive signature. He used it from one
collection to the next in all its forms: disks and rectangles normally used to
make protective aprons for butchers, coats of mail, hammered plates,
aluminum jerseys, or elements of jewelry or decoration used as modi8ed
ready-mades. This work led Coco Chanel to call him “the metal worker.”
Rabanne readily acknowledged that the recycling of ready-mades was very
much in the tradition of the dadaists, such as his acknowledged master Marcel
Duchamp.
He experimented with other materials, whether previously unknown to fashion
or reimagined and redirected from their original purposes. Among Rabanne’s
most notable
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creations were: paper dresses, which were presented in his collections in
1967, 1988, and 1992; molded clothing known by the name of the patented
GiKo process, in which all the individual parts, including the buttons and
pockets, were molded in a single block (1968); designs made from knitted fur
(1967); and several made entirely of buttons (1970), wood (1977), coconuts
(1993), or laser discs (1988). Far from being incidental, these experiments
were developed according to a rigorous artistic and ideological
perspective. In the process, they helped to free the art of clothing design from
its strictly utilitarian context, and they inspired many other designers to adopt
their current positions.
The innovative and nonconformist character of Rabanne’s work was
recognized in avant-garde artistic circles. The gallery owner Iris Clert exhibited
Paco Rabanne’s creations in 1966 among those of other artists she supported,
like Lucio Fontana. Salvador Dali referred to his young compatriot as the
second Spanish genius for his Unwearable Dresses collection.
Rabanne’s clothes also appealed to such 1960s icons as Brigitte Bardot and
Francoise Hardy. It was also in this period that the cinema made the most
frequent use of his dresses, so singular in appearance and so photogenic.
Other Activities
In the 1960s and 1970s Rabanne was in great demand as a costume designer
for theatrical productions and ballets as well as 8lms. His many noteworthy
contributions to
the cinema include: Two or Three Things I Know About Her, directed by Jean-
Luc Godard (1967); The Adventurers (Les aventuriers) also known as “The Last
Adventure,” directed by Robert Enrico (1967); Two for the Road, directed by
Stanley Donen (1967); Casino Royale, directed by John Huston (1967); and
Barbarella, directed by Roger Vadim (1968).