After the departure of Nicolas Ghesquière from Balenciaga, Julien Dossena didn’t want to continue his job as a designer at the French brand, and quit after working there for four successful years. While the choice appeared difficult and even slightly risky, the 31-year-old Dossena was soon rewarded with a consultancy at the historic maison of Paco Rabanne, just a few weeks after his departure from Balenciaga. Paco Rabanne needed a new take on its iconic futuristic design which has been the house’s signature aesthetic approach since the 1960s and Julien Dossena’s innovative take on fashion seemed the right way to lead its future. In fact, Marc Puig, the brand’s CEO soon appointed Dossena as the new creative director.
Julien Dossena’s first collection at Paco Rabanne was a celebration of the house’s futuristic legacy with glossy leather dresses, metal mesh tops, and silver jeans as its high points. Dossena seams to always have had a special relation to the Paco Rabanne’s design, understood as a celebration of modernity and rebelliousness – an aesthetics that Dossena wants to develop in the brand’s new collections as well as adjusting it to the modern women of today. This is not an particularly easy task, but we believe Dossena has succeeded with it so far, by showing collections that combine modernity with influences from the brand’s rich history. A key to this fine balanced success are his thoughts about design in general and his new position in particular, as the designer believes in sci-fi and design as a way of creating a whole new world, something that Dossena says Paco Rabanne succeeded in back in the days, and that it is now time for him to do again. Determined to respect the brand’s history while offering bold innovation, who could be better to build on Rabanne’s legacy, than Dossena?
