As Julien Dossena moves on from Rabanne we celebrate his tenure there by looking back at how his work appeared in the pages of Vogue. During his 13-year run, the brand shortened its name (jettisoning the Paco) and reached new customers through a holiday collaboration with H&M. Dossena earned industry bona fides when he was invited to be a guest designer for Jean Paul Gaultier couture for fall 2023.

Paco Rabanne was founded in 1966 by the Spanish jeweler-turned-designer and mystic. The brand is associated with Space Age fashions broadly, and more specifically with linked and chainmail dresses, some made of plastic, other of scraps of leather. (Rabanne’s metal dresses were satirized in William Klein’s 1966 film Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?)

Having worked for the sci-fi-loving Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga, Julien Dossena—who hails from Brittany and studied fashion in Belgium–was well-equipped to tackle the futuristic legacy of the house. To this, he added his own more haute bohemian sensibility, particularly through the use of mixed prints. Some collections incorporated trippy Peter Max-like elements, and there was one featuring reproductions of artworks by Salvador Dalí. Fitting, as the surrealist artist once said: “There are only two geniuses in Spain: me and Paco Rabanne.”

A maximalist, Dossena was fond of layering openwork link dresses over prints; he also tended to gild the proverbial lily by generously using sparkling strass that gave an optimistic element of joy and occasion to his collections.

From Gigi Hadid to Zendaya and beyond, here is Julien Dossena’s Rabbane as it appeared in Vogue.

Christian Lacroix is Laird Borrelli-Persson’s fashion raison d’etre; the way he combined romance and historicism set her on the path she is following today. Borrelli-Persson studied literature at Boston College, spending her junior year abroad at Oxford, where she added some art history. After graduation she moved to New York to intern ... Read More