Jack Moss is the Fashion Features Editor at Wallpaper*, joining the team in 2022.
Three hundred and sixty-seven gleaming ‘pastilles’ of metal, each one attached together by hand, make up Rabanne’s ‘1969’ chainmail handbag, an emblem of the eponymous designer’s utopian vision for fashion which – alongside André Courrèges and Pierre Cardin – would define the Space Age spirit of the 1960s. ‘I defy anyone to design a hat, coat or dress that hasn’t been done before,’ Paco Rabanne said in 1966. ‘The only new frontier left in fashion is the finding of new materials.
That said, the ‘1969’ handbag had more humble beginnings, its starting point a steel apron traditionally worn by butchers in France to protect them from the sharp implements of their trade. Using just a pair of pliers – of a type still used to attach the bag's hooks and pastilles today – the apron’s protective disks were recrafted into the simple, foldover bag.
Of its particular appeal – which has seen numerous iterations, including the ‘nano’ and ‘mini’, the latter the size of an iPhone – Dossena credits the way it evokes ‘a lifestyle, hedonistic and avant-garde, sensual and modernist’. Indeed, its sinous form is designed to trace the line of the body – like the house’s chainmail gowns, immortalised by Jane Fonda in Barbarella – and was worn by figures of French cinema like Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda.
It is all part of the evolution of Rabanne that has taken place under Dossena’s ten-year tenure, a relative lifetime in the ever-turning merry-go-round of designer appointments and exits. ‘Now, there’s a perception of the brand that is completely different ,’ he said last year. ‘First, it was the industry insiders that were sceptical about what Rabanne could be. Then we got them on side. Now, Rabanne is going mainstream. I can feel the evolution.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Decision to approve Julian Assange’s extradition quashed after releaseIn an order on Friday, judges said the decision to order Mr Assange’s extradition to the US in June 2022 had been overturned.
Read more »
Decision to approve Julian Assange’s extradition quashed after releaseIn an order on Friday, judges said the decision to order Mr Assange’s extradition to the US in June 2022 had been overturned.
Read more »
Germany could drop superstar for Euro 2024 clash with Denmark as Julian Nagelsmann gets ruthlessGermany manager Julians Nagelsmann is set to drop one of his key players for their knockout clash against Denmark at Euro 2024
Read more »
Julian Assange plans to swim ‘every day' and eat 'real food' following prison releaseHis wife, Stella Assange, offered a glimpse of how her husband is planning to return to normal life.
Read more »
Julian Assange's homecoming: inside his new safe haven in AustraliaThe WikiLeaks founder shares two young children with wife Stella Assange
Read more »
WikiLeaks gadfly: the Julian Assange sagaAfter seven years in an Ecuadorean embassy and five in a UK prison, US legal pursuit draws to a close
Read more »