2023-11-09 09:42:05
Dresses made of metal, sparkling sequins, leopard prints: H&M’s new designer collection hits stores on Thursday (November 9th), created in collaboration with Rabanne – the label of the legendary Spanish designer Paco Rabanne, who died in February.
Under the direction of creative director Julien Dossena, who has been responsible for Rabanne’s collections since 2014, the brand’s typical codes are hard to miss even at the Swedish mass manufacturer: in the form of a skirt made of gold coin-sized sequins, for example, purple glitter trousers or pieces made of metal mesh.
At H&M, collaboration with well-known designers and designer labels has a tradition: Karl Lagerfeld started in 2004, followed by brands such as Versace and Comme des Garçons, Maison Margiela and Balmain. And now the Rabanne label, founded in Paris in the early 1960s.
Matter of fact: It glitters and sparkles in the line, even at the top.H&M
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In Berlin, where the advertising posters for the collection have long dominated the cityscape, the new line was celebrated on Tuesday evening. In the Feuerle Collection on Halleschen Ufer, the designs were presented to a specialist audience and prominent guests, including Bill Kaulitz, Frederik Lau and Lena Gercke. Lydia Maurer, who was responsible for the Rabanne brand’s collections as creative director between 2012 and 2013, also looked at the collection on her computer at home.
Rabanne had started his brand hoping to do something that would be less elitist.
Lydia Maurer
Looking back on her time at the French fashion brand, the Berliner describes herself as the last link in a longer chain of designers who accompanied the label through an experimental phase. “At that time, the task was to make the Rabanne brand more commercial and at the same time clearly position it in high fashion,” she says.
Maurer, who was not yet 30 when she took up this impressive position and was preceded by designers such as Christophe Decarnin, Patrick Robinson and Manish Arora, was faced with the challenge of “finding a balance between well-sold collections and fashion pieces for the artistic niche”.
Thinking power: Lydia Maurer also once designed Rabanne.Noah Jashinksi’s fashion
Maurer countered the futuristic, sometimes martial codes of the brand founder Paco Rabanne, who had a preference for hard, cold materials such as metal or plastic, with something softer and more feminine. “I have always been very concerned with the female body and wanted to design something more female-friendly,” says Maurer, who after her years in Paris ran her own underwear label in Berlin and today brands such as Wunderkind and Rudi Gernreich through her company Lydia Maurer Consulting also provides creative advice to influencers like Ishtar Isik.
At Rabanne, she contrasted the strict lines of the 1960s with flowing silk tops and dresses that were reminiscent of lingerie and negligees; She also began flocking the label’s iconic metal dresses on the underside, combining the cold material with warming textiles to create more comfortable, wearable designs. “However, that increased the price extremely,” says the designer today – basically Lydia Maurer was faced with a similar difficulty as Paco Rabanne himself at the time.
Green: The strong colors correspond to the meaningful sixties. HM
He, too, had actually made it his mission to establish a more democratic fashion. “He started his brand in the ’60s hoping to do something that would be less elitist,” says Maurer. The couturier, born in 1934 in San Sebastián, Spain, worked with everyday materials, re-staged metal butcher’s aprons, used plastic and paper, and even incorporated chains into his collections that were actually intended to flush toilets at the time – he made a name for himself as the “plumber of the… Fashion”.
I know from my own experience how difficult it is to implement the significant Rabanne style more cheaply.
Lydia Maurer
“This meant that Rabanne inevitably ended up in haute couture, which he actually didn’t want to be in,” says Maurer – “the production of his designs, even if they were made from everyday materials, was very expensive.” Alongside the French André Courrèges and Pierre Cardin Rabanne was soon considered an inventor of futuristic fashion, which was intended to accompany the “Space Age” of the sixties.
Until he gradually began to withdraw from fashion in 1999, Rabanne worked in this way – the Spaniard was never able to implement his plan to make affordable fashion “that could have reached the youth that was so important to him,” as Lydia Maurer describes it . “I think,” the designer continued, “he would have liked the collaboration with H&M.” In a sense, a circle has now come full circle, a few months after Paco Rabanne’s death in February of this year.
Genius: The Spanish-born fashion designer Paco Rabanne died in February of this year at the age of 88.Abacapress/Imago
Maurer sees the collaboration between H&M and the luxury label as positive. “I think the collection is really successful,” says the Berliner. “I know from my own experience how difficult it is to implement the significant Rabanne style more cheaply.” However, its most important features remained recognizable even in the mass manufacturer.
For example, while a leopard print dress from the Rabanne label sells for more than 1,000 euros, a comparable model from the H&M collection sells for 149 euros. A sequin dress costs around 3,200 euros at Rabanne, while H&M sells such a design for 299 euros. Not everyone will find it really cheap – but it’s a long way from the Parisian haute couture that Paco Rabanne once ended up in willy-nilly.
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