When was the last time you were stopped in your tracks by a visually arresting fashion campaign? Chances are it was when a plastic-wrapped, kidney-shaped sofa loomed large on your Instagram feed. You may have not even realised it was a fashion campaign in the first place; negating obvious product placement, devoid of a Pied Piper influencer or ubiquitous supermodel, the photograph in question, which comprised Paco Rabanne's autumn/winter 2017 campaign, was conceived as a counterpoint to the workaday fashion ad. Now, creative director Julien Dossena is back with a spring campaign that's just as evocative.
Developed in conjunction with frequent collaborators, the Dutch artists Maurice Scheltens and Liesbeth Abbenes and the art director Marc Ascoli, the images for the spring/summer 2018 campaign are similarly merchandise-free. "Putting product in the picture in a less marketed way creates strength in the image," says Dossena, speaking over the phone from Paris. "It's not a fashion campaign, or a brand campaign - it becomes an image you want to think about. As if it were a set."
And where are we this season? At first glance, the dingy bedsit appears to be a window on scrappy student life. "Exactly," says Dossena, when pressed on the lifestyle he's promoting for spring. "I wanted to express intimacy, delicacy, that kind of grunge and cool thing, but feminine at the same time. The Paco girl is dreamy, a fine art student or a musician, a performer, an artist. The atmosphere is like the old Chelsea hotel. I was thinking of [Robert] Mapplethorpe and that creative feeling that you are living at certain points in your life - but expressed in a more dystopic way."
And where are we this season? At first glance, the dingy bedsit appears to be a window on scrappy student life. "Exactly," says Dossena, when pressed on the lifestyle he's promoting for spring. "I wanted to express intimacy, delicacy, that kind of grunge and cool thing, but feminine at the same time. The Paco girl is dreamy, a fine art student or a musician, a performer, an artist. The atmosphere is like the old Chelsea hotel. I was thinking of [Robert] Mapplethorpe and that creative feeling that you are living at certain points in your life - but expressed in a more dystopic way."
What little product can be seen in the images also reflects what the Paco customer is actually buying. "We wanted to create a 'no fashion' look," says Dossena. "This is what our real customer is buying: the body line, the Paco knickers, mixed with just a black top. I wanted it to have that undone feeling, as if you are half in the middle of something, totally free and chilling in your house."
The undone aesthetic is something Dossena actively pursues at the brand, which this season was shot through with an energy characteristic of the French designer's disco-heavy youth spent in The Tiffany Club, in Brittany, a club owned by Dossena's father. "I always try to push that effortless effect - I'm getting more and more confident in my job, it's getting easier to just have a shirt, a pair of jeans, and some boots," says Dossena.
"Of course, when you do a show, it has to be performative, but it's always quite simple looks - that says more to me than a look where all the references are clashing together. The super cool feeling that you don't have to pretend to be anything, you don't have to pose." As for the Paco Rabanne alphabet, he's adding to it all the time - but slowly. "There are so many clothes in the world - you have to be impactful."
See the new Paco Rabanne campaign video at Pacorabanne.com
See the new Paco Rabanne campaign video at Pacorabanne.com
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