“Are you a provocateur?” asks a voice off-camera. “Oh la la, oui!” We attempt to unravel the enigma of Rabanne: audacity, nonconformity, a passion for music, solitude, and a heart divided between Spain and France.
A childhood without a father. Son of a Balenciaga seamstress. Family exile. Studies in Paris. A volcano of ideas. Impossible garments made from unexpected materials: plastic, paper, metal. Barbarella and Two for the Road. Françoise Hardy dressed in chainmail.
In the film, we hear a voiceover: it is Paco Rabanne, in his final interview, recorded months before his death. In 2002, he withdrew from public life, and it took the director three years to convince him to speak. Rabanne’s silhouettes took the modern woman emerging in the sixties one step further. Interviews with Julien Dossena, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Carla Sozzani, among others, help to shed light on the mystery surrounding the master.