Julien Dossena performs one of fashion’s great balancing acts.
At the helm of Rabanne for the last 13 years, he has reliably turned out both the silver chain-mail party gear pioneered by founder Paco Rabanne in the 1960s, and daywear grounded in equal parts workwear and flea market treasures.
The first category has won him celebrity fans including Sabrina Carpenter, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus. The second is the kind of thing you might see on cool girls roaming the streets of Paris.
Dossena embraces the dichotomy. “What I try to do in my work is to always find that exact point of balance, or point of tension, between those two aspects,” he said.
“Because, obviously, there’s the DNA of Paco Rabanne, which I call avant-garde sensuality. And then for me, as a designer, what matters is really being able to support women and offer them an everyday wardrobe, something in which they feel cool, relaxed or strong, depending on their needs,” he added.
His latest eveningwear capsule and resort collection was a perfect illustration. As part of his ongoing experimentation with chain mail, which he handles with the fluidity of a fabric, the designer attached glimmering curtain fringes to draped tops patterned with tiny metallic beads, or a khaki sweater dress.
In typical era-hopping style, he paired a dusty pink chain-mail top with tailored black pants, adding a fake fur collar as an unexpected flourish. “It looks kind of like a T-shirt, but it could also be a cape from the 1930s,” he mused. “A girl showing up to a party like this stands out for her effortlessness.”
Dossena reprised some of the ideas of his fall runway show, including slouchy pleated pants and jelly-like oversized sequins blurring the hems of floral-print dresses.
His sloped-shoulder jackets were a nod to Italian tailoring from the ’90s, down to the faded pastel palette. Crisp shirts and pants with retro-style triangular pocket trims were set off with glossy mock-croc biker jackets and coats, or a fluffy fake fur shrug — proof that the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary can sometimes lie in the attitude.
