Paco Rabanne Headdress

In 2023 I was commissioned by Francesca Galloway to make a reconstruction of an original headdress made in the 1960s by the fashion designer Paco Rabanne. The client owned the dress but not the headdress, and wanted a reconstruction made of the original piece in order for it to be photographed on a mannequin with the dress to then be featured in a publication she was working on.

With forty years of experience and expertise, Francesca Galloway is known as one of the foremost galleries dealing in Indian painting and courtly arts. In addition to this, Francesca Galloway is one of the foremost galleries dealing in 19th & 20th century textiles and couture and they have been dealing in textiles and costume since the 1980s, with their areas of specialism encompassing important Asian and European textiles as well as iconic examples of 20th century fashion.

In October 2024, Francesca Galloway published, “AN EYE FOR COUTURE – A Collector’s Exploration of 20th Century Fashion”. This book documents and explores her private collection of 20th century French haute couture and fashion, which she has put together over a period of thirty-five years. Her collection focuses on those designers who shaped fashion and whose work embodied the zeitgeist of their time, including Paul Poiret, Gabrielle Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Paco Rabanne. The book’s photographs, by Katrina Lawson Johnston, straddle the line between fashion and still life and are accompanied by essays that explore the collection and aim to deepen our understanding of the pieces and their context.

I was told that the intention wasn’t to create a direct replica of the metal chain-mail type pieces, but an interpretation of it instead. Rather than making this replica piece in metal, instead I was asked to use card and paper. The image I was provided with was a bit grainy however images of the actual dress, with measurements, were sent to me to work from, as seen below.

Paco Rabanne was a Spanish fashion designer and perfumer who was known for his avant-garde designs and use of unusual materials. He used his architecture background to construct garments made of new materials and techniques. Rabanne always pushed the boundaries of fashion through constant experimentation designing truly unique pieces that, today, still influence fashion.

Some of his most famous designs were made of plastic discs linked together with fine wires, and a modern version of the chain-mail using squares of aluminium strung together with metal chains and beads in between which was the dress that I was working with. His garments were often worn by influential models and celebrities such as Twiggy or his muse, the singer Francoise Hardy. Paco Rabanne put his imprint on the 60′s pop culture like no other designer with his first collection, “12 Unwearable Dresses in Contemporary Materials”, being released in 1966.

The first step was to make up a test piece to share with the client to check that they were happy with it. I toyed with the idea of using metallic paper to mimic the aluminium squares but didn’t feel this would be right for the look. Instead I decided to experiment with applying heat activated silver foil to the surface of a grey coloured card using some heated tools. This in fact worked very well and provided a satisfying sheen and tone on the paper without looking too shiny. It helped with creating a ‘sketchy’ look, as if the headdress had perhaps been drawn.

For the central beads I trialled making these with tracing paper to provide a glassy look that also had the same metallic sheen applied to them with the foils. I played around with the shape and created a card template, which I was then able to use to cut out the tracing paper. It was then scored, folded and glued into a three dimensional shape to look like a faceted bead.

The sample piece I created initially was much too big, the pieces were in fact 3cm wide. So although happy with the appearance of it I had to scale it down for the headdress.

I then worked on a second sample piece to trial the metallic swirls that were attached to many of the pieces of chain mail. I also took the time to work out the best way of attaching the fragile tracing paper beads to the card square by rolling up a length of tracing paper, that would act as a spacer, holding the tracing paper bead the correct distance from the flat surface of the square. As the original dress had the elements joined with copper wire, I opted to use a copper-tone brown thread on the reconstruction.

Once the trial pieces were signed off by the client I then went into production to make all the necessary elements. As I only had one reference image to work with, I had to make my own judgement as to how many to use for the entire headdress, as I wasn’t exactly sure how the right hand side of the headdress looked.

I cut out multiple squares and swirls and applied the silver foil to them by swiping a heated tool across it onto the card shapes. On the squares I punched small holes in the corners using a Japanese hole punch so that I could string them together after construction. The swirls were then bent around and glued, and held together with little pegs whilst they dried.

I cut strips of 1cm wide tracing paper and tighly rolled them around a needle, before fixing them with PVA glue. These would act as spacers when affixing the tracing paper beads to the card squares to help hold the tracing paper bead proud of the surface without it getting crushed. 

The beads were affixed to the swirls using skeins of thread. Large knots were tied and then both threaded through the bead and the tracing paper tube and a hole that I had punched centrally in the card square. The thread ends were then glued onto the back.

I cut jump rings from 0.8mm gauge aluminium wire by wrapping it around a piece of brass of the correct diameter. Using a jewellery piercing saw I cut the twisted wire into individual rings.

The rings were attached to the holes punched into the corners of the card squares.

The original headdress also included some large additional strips of aluminium swirling out of the top of the head. I created these by cutting long strips of the grey card, which had the same heated silver foil applied to them. I sourced a polystyrene mannequin head to test out the construction on and made a frame from the card to mount the headdress to the mannequin head.

I used little clips to pin the long strips of card together whilst working their positions, and then also once I had glued them in place.

The chain mail squares were then mounted to this construction with the aid of the alumimium jump rings.

Once the headdress was completed I hand-delivered it to Francesco Galloway and had the opportunity to see it on the mannequin with the original dress!

For more imformation please visit the Special Projects section of my website here.

Finally, many thanks to Francesca Galloway for sending me this image and permitting me to share it on my website and social media.