Power; My Metal Pouch

Since his appointment as creative director in 2013, Julian Dossena has skilfully redressed Paco Rabanne as a contemporary brand, one that is in touch with its avant-garde past yet with a very clear eye to its future. The fashion world is back in love with this the brand that sent futuristic fashion into our universe.

Even from its earliest days, the brand had its eyes and heart in futurism. In 1966, Paco Roanne launched his label with ‘12 Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials’ In the ’70s, he dressed many a celebrity including the likes of Jane Birkin, Françoise Hardy, Amanda Lear to any chic grandmother; everyone in Fashion knew of him with the 1968 sci-fi fantasy film Barbarella, seeing Jane Fonda’s costumes created by him. It was this year that the brand was purchased by Barcelona-based luxury group Puig.

Puig predominantly is a fragrance business, one the biggest in the world and more than anything that has driven Paco Robanne over the last 40 years. They have had massive success launching a number of best-selling fragrances, including 1969 debut scent Calandre, Paco Rabanne Pour Homme (1973) in 2008 the massively successful, One Million and more recently Invictus (2013) and Olympéa (2015).

In keeping with not just its avant-guard heritage Julian Dossena has worked to create his first set of fragrances for the brand; the Pacollection. This consists of unusual meetings of scent layering. For example, the silver red package called Erotic Me is described as a Milky leather or the bronze silver one, Fabulous Me which is a coppery oriental.

So there are in the collection six unique takes of layered fragrances. Each has its own name and its own colour and is housed in a bottle, BUT the bottle is contained in a metal envelope (coated in plastic) which apparently makes it indestructible. The colours are dependent on the names and the ingredients but all are silver with an hombre stain of colour, so in keeping with the modernist concept of Paco Rabanne.

The six different scents are like six different moods or different personality traits

Fabulous Me Eau de parfum is a coppery, oriental fragrance powered by notes of pumpkin, sandalwood and green rhubarb, for a velvety and rich yet not overpowering unisex scent with a silky finish. Encased in the silver-copper container

Dangerous Me Eau de parfum is a textured, oriental fragrance powered by notes of vanilla, cedar and grey amber, for an inky and rich yet not overpowering unisex scent with a sultry finish. Encased in the silver-slate grey container

Erotic Me Eau de parfum is a milky, warm fragrance powered by fruity and floral leather notes against osmanthus, for a warm and sultry unisex scent with a velvety finish. Encased in the silver-red container

Crazy Me Eau de parfum is an electrifying floral fragrance powered by mimosa and sandalwood notes against green wasabi, for a paradoxical unisex scent with a spicy finish. Encased in the silver-yellow/gold container.

Genius Me Eau de parfum is a fresh fragrance powered by rosemary and tree moss notes against cristallfizzTM – a clean-smelling molecule derived from washing powder – for a futuristic, citrusy finish. Encased in the silver-blue container

And finally

Dangerous Me Eau de parfum is a textured, oriental fragrance powered by notes of vanilla, cedar and grey amber, for an inky and rich yet not overpowering unisex scent with a sultry finish. Encased in the silver-green container.

Interestingly the brand used a variation of noses to work on the scents including Marie Salamagne, Fabrice Pellerin, to one of the most important names in fragrance now, Dominique Ropion, who created Genius Me. The fragrances , as mentioned represent differnt moods or a state of mind and are presented in the visual as six different people. There is, however, a sense of wanting to buy into each and every one of the perfumes not just to own the boundary-pushing packaging but also to wear each dependent on mood.

It’s fair to say this is yet another future-smashing moment for the brand