Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne dies aged 88

Paco Rabanne told shocked reporters after his first couture collection in 1966: ‘Who cares if no one can wear my dresses. They are statements.’ Photograph: Luis Davilla/Cover/Getty Images

The Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne, best known for his space-age metal dresses, bestselling fragrances and eccentric pronouncements, has died at the age of 88.

His death was announced on Friday in a statement by the Puig group, which owns the Paco Rabanne brand. “I am profoundly saddened by the death of Paco Rabanne,” the group’s chief executive, Marc Puig, said in a statement. “Through his great personality, he transmitted a unique aesthetic and a daring, revolutionary and provocative vision of the world of fashion.”