Effortless is not a word immediately associated with Paco Rabanne, a man who made his name on his famed 12 Unwearable Dresses collection. During Julien Dossena’s tenure, he’s done much to usher the brand into the modern era while keeping loyal to its plastic-fantastic roots. The fall lineup was full of the traditional Paco Rabanne geometric paillette embroidered assemblages and chain mail on slipdresses, tanks, tunics and shower sandals. “It’s plastic but you see it move,” said Dossena backstage. “It’s really like a living material. We wanted to give easiness and lightness to the assemblages.”
The result wasn’t quite effortless (plastic discs, squares and strips, no matter how easy to slip on, have a hard edge) but it brought the Rabanne aesthetic closer to reality than perhaps it’s ever been. Dossena focused on a side of the house that’s not always discussed — it’s Parisian through and through. To that end, he mined the chic tropes native to the city — mariner stripes, the perfect trench, an immaculately tailored camel coat, seductive lingerie, shearling, even a bourgeois twinset — and interspersed them with the shimmying fantasy embroideries. By doing so, Dossena struck an impressive equilibrium, imparting the basics with a touch
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