by Giorgio Armani has said that Paco Rabanne’s death at the age of 88 marks the death of “another radical creator” recently lost to the fashion world.
The 88-year-old Italian fashion designer paid tribute to Rabanne, whom he used to clash with over perfume sales, saying he was a “true futurist”.
In a statement on his company’s Twitter account, Armani wrote: “Fashion continues to lose radical creators, capable of inventing worlds and perspectives from scratch.
“Paco Rabanne was a true futurist (and) an experimentalist (who) always projected himself into the future, always looking towards tomorrow”.
Rabanne’s death follows that of Dame Vivienne Westwood, known as the Godmother of Punk, who died in December aged 81, and Japanese fashion designer Hanae Mori, 96, and French fashion designer Thierry Mugler, of 73, who passed away in January of last year.
Recalling the effect that the green Barbarella de Rabanne suit, worn by Jane Fonda as the titular space traveler in the 1968 sci-fi film, had on him, Armani also wrote that the fashion designer had “unmistakable talent.”
He added that it was “sad” that a “visionary would leave us.”
The fashion house of Rabanne found commercial success with its range of perfumes and its debut fragrance Calandre, first launched in 1969, which continues today.
Armani’s first fragrance release was Giorgio by Giorgio Beverly Hills in the 1980s, a perfume that is sold today.
In other tributes, Julien Dossena, who took over from Rabanne at the helm of his fashion house, paid tribute on Instagram by “thanking him” for being a fashion designer who defined “modernity” and the “cultural revolution.”
He also wrote that he was “a total artist” who used his expression of “his own personal utopia” to evolve his worldview.
Canadian model Stacey McKenzie wrote on Instagram: “One of the most humble designers I have been lucky enough to meet, hang out with and model (sp).
“Thank you for being you, Paco Rabanne, we will miss you very much.”
The television personality, who has been a judge on Canada’s Next Top Model and Canada’s Drag Race, has also modeled for Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier.
Bruno Pavlovsky, president of the Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion, which runs Paris Fashion Week, said in a statement: “Paco Rabanne was a leading fashion designer who never stopped exploring traditional knowledge and new techniques with boldness and eccentricity.
“A couturier who broke new ground in fashion from his first show in Paris.”
The organization’s executive president, Pascal Morand, also said: “An iconic figure in fashion, passionate about innovation through the use of materials, Paco Rabanne was an emancipator whose creative freedom has profoundly marked French and international fashion.”
Rabanne, whose real name was Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo, founded the renowned fashion house that bears his name in 1966 and his death was announced Friday on his company’s official Instagram account.
