Stripping away the great fashion idols (from here and there)

BarcelonaAnyone searching through the RTVE archives will find black and white footage of a haute couture show Paco Rabanne staged in Paris in 1966. It was his first and already catapulted him to success for his innovative approach to fashion, materials, and the role women should play in society. It hadn't even exploded in May '68, but Rabanne had already read what was happening on the streets and, with his distinctive futuristic style, brought it to the catwalk. It wasn't for nothing that they called him the Visionary. But beyond the designer who made dresses by assembling metal pieces, who pioneered soundtracks for shows and hiring Black models, who launched high-profile perfumes... who was Paco Rabanne? To begin with, it wasn't even his real name, just the label behind which Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo (Pasaia, 1934) hid, a Basque child who, due to the Spanish Civil War, eked out a living in refugee camps in the south of France and who, against all odds, ended up touching glory in Paris.

"Rather than vindicate him, what we want is to pay tribute to Paco Rabanne, an approach to his figure and his legacy from a knowledge perspective. Until now, there have been many scattered stories and the character's full dimension has not been given. And that's what we wanted to do," explains Pepa G. Ramos, co-director Paco Rabanne: A Life Outside the Box (2025). This is one of the attractions of the ninth edition of Moritz Feed Dog, the fashion documentary festival that will be held from this Wednesday to Sunday at the Mooby Bosque cinemas in Barcelona. Among the twenty titles programmed - some with names as tempting as Twiggy, Elsa Schiaparelli, John Galliano and Coperni or that tell stories as fascinating as that of the model and war photographer Lee Miller -, this year there are three of national production: one about Paco Rabanne, another about the model Paco Rabanne, another about the model Pago Rabanne.

A trend that already began in previous editions, when titles such as BEAR (2019), about the lineage of the Manresa jewelers Tous; My last sentence. Ana de Pombo (2023), about the versatile Cantabrian who became Coco Chanel's right-hand woman, and Fashion vs. Words (2023) and Fashion vs. Music (2024), with creative direction by Barcelona-born Josep Abril. Is this an indicator of the sweet moment this audiovisual genre is experiencing in Spain? "Fashion and its creative processes are becoming increasingly interesting, and luckily, there are some very good designers in our country. It also helps platforms and television channels focus on fashion, which, apart from being an art form, also explains who we are. This means these stories can reach a much wider audience," argues Ramos, who gives the example above.

Threading the Needle

To reconstruct Rabanne's story, Ramos and Pérez had to rely on documentary sources and witnesses, although they had the privilege of speaking with the ambitious designer on a couple of occasions. "We could say that this was the only interview Paco gave in the last twenty years. Since 2000, he had lived in retirement in a house he owned in Brittany. He didn't consider himself a misanthrope, but he had a hard time establishing relationships with people, even within his closest circle. He thinks that Julien Dossena—getting to know him—was a very spiritual person, and in recent times all he wanted to do was pray and draw," says Ramos. Unfortunately, Paco Rabanne died on February 3, 2023, just shy of his 89th birthday, just as the documentary that now pays tribute to him was being completed.

Unlike Ramos and Pérez, Adriana Domínguez—daughter of Adolfo Domínguez and, since 2020, executive president of the company that bears her father's name—has had everything more at her fingertips. At least as the director of the documentary Adolfo Domínguez. The Echo of Other Voices (2024), an intimate portrait of the father figure and the important role that the family business played in the Spanish Transition. Domínguez was the one who coined the mythical phrase "wrinkles are beautiful" with which he seduced a new generation of women thirsty for aesthetic and social change. Adriana, trained as an actress at the prestigious The Actors Studio in New York, directs her debut film following the lights and shadows of Adolfo Domínguez, the man, and also of Adolfo Domínguez, the brand. And he does so poetically, alternating images of fashion shows, Galician landscapes, the factory fire, family moments... A metaphorical visual game to ask a crucial question: "Dad, do you think it was worth it?"

It is also no surprise that Adriana Domínguez, due to her management position in the family company, is one of the interviewees in Coordinates. Past, present, and future of Spanish fashion (2024), a documentary with an eloquent title directed by Barcelona-born Pilar Riaño, director and founder of Modaes, the leading platform for economic information in the sector. "We have just completed fifteen years and to celebrate, we have this documentary to donate answers to a question: is there a Spanish model in fashion? We have interviewed thirty executives and owners of very different companies -Desigual, Tous, Roberto Verino, El Ganso, Munich, Nude Project...- and we have three three various conclusions, but one is that Spanish fashion reflects the Spanish society," says Riaño. Perhaps because fashion becomes fashion when you know how to read what is happening on the street and both the case of Paco Rabanne and that of Adolfo Domínguez are a good example. Look for them on the big screen.