Paco Rabanne’s Julien Dossena is the latest designer on the L.A.-Tokyo express
Paco Rabanne creative director Julien Dossena is the latest designer to take inspiration from the California desert and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival scene. Dossena came to Los Angeles after his first appearance at the Met Ball (with date Michelle Monaghan) to celebrate a collaboration with Just One Eye on two exclusive styles of the Paco Element bag.
The small and medium bucket totes, which launched during Coachella, were fashioned in nude and camel vegetable-dyed leather and retail for $1150 and $1390, respectively.
“The leather tans with the sun, we thought it was kind of L.A.,” said Dossena, who used a silver material for the liner to represent the technology industry of the Golden State.
The Elements bag was introduced two years ago and fashioned after a leather dress Dossena created in one of his early collections since taking the design helm at Paco Rabanne four years ago.
“The idea with the leather dress was a play on the Paco Rabanne Assemblage bag that was more minimal. Then we applied it to accessories, because the two were talking to each other,” he said, noting the Paco bags with shiny pastilles are “more luxury. This one is still expensive but more artisanal and modernist feeling. It’s a different way of wearing it, and for us to begin to increase our accessories line with different prices and feelings.”
Dossena is en route to Japan, where he will attend his friend Nicolas Ghesquière’s Louis Vuitton cruise show in Kyoto on Sunday, as well as shop for inspiration in Tokyo.
“I always find the best books and clothes and textiles that you never find anywhere else. I always fuel for ideas for years when I go to Japan,” he said. “I’m a huge Issey Miyake fan and love to find some of his technical fabrics.”
Dossena was in town at the same time as several of his Paris cohorts, from Bruno Frisoni to Maria Grazia Chiuri, though he said the only time he gets to socialize with them is at events like the Met Ball. “We are locked in our studios all year. Sometimes we’re even on the same street, but we never meet.”
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