Julien Dossena’s Paco Rabanne pre-fall lands in the space-time continuum between his last season’s space-age/medieval fantasia and something that’s more like everyday wear on Planet Earth. One link between the two is a port-hole. It first appeared in the center of a gold brocade sleeveless top, completely surrounded by a shaggy whorl of golden thread in the spring collection. For pre-fall it manifests more simply (yet still quite luxuriously) in the circular cut-out in a black tank, this time edged with metallic Moroccan-style stud-work embroidery.
The theme of the collection plays more to the 1970s this season, starting with a super-slim long navy coat in flexible knit, and proceeding through lots of maxi-options in, say, a checked A-line skirt and a couple of flower-printed dresses.
Where there’s Rabanne, there has to be chain-mail, of course. Dossena’s long-running success has been to make it light, wearable, and a ubiquitous signifer through the brand. It’s unmissable in the silver bias-cut dress with a scarf over one shoulder and a gold mini-tabard which he slung a reversible silver-lined parka over in the lookbook; perhaps less so (but just as cleverly) in the new torqued shape of the leather paillette bags. It’s a satisfyingly modern piece of design that’s chic and utilitarian at the same time. A signature of the house that’s branded through and through, with no need for a logo to spell it out.
