Ultrarare 1967 Paco Rabanne Armour Dress to Be Auctioned

An ultra-rare 1967 Paco Rabanne armour dress formerly owned by Hélène Rochas will be offered at auction by Roseberys London on 19 March 2026, with an estimate of £10,000-£20,000.

The dress dates from a pivotal moment in Rabanne’s career, produced one year after he launched his fashion house in 1966 with the iconoclastic Twelve Unwearable Dresses collection, his first radical exploration of constructing garments from aluminium and other unconventional materials.

His armour dresses, assembled from metal discs, plates or geometric modules linked by rings or wire, were not sewn but built, challenging the very definition of clothing.

They have since become among the most recognisable symbols of avant-garde fashion and are represented in major museum collections internationally.

The Unwearable Dresses collection launched Rabanne’s career and defined the space-age aesthetic of the late 1960s, alongside contemporaries such as Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges.

Luxury Items Specialist Sally He seen with the Paco Rabanne armour dress

Sally He

Luxury Items Specialist at Roseberys

“This dress represents a really pivotal moment in fashion history. It’s rare enough that Rabanne’s armour dresses ever come to the market, and rarer still to find one with such a tangible link to his own development as a designer through the Rochas connection."

Before founding his own house, Rabanne worked in the early 1960s for the House of Rochas as a jewellery and accessories designer. Under the direction of Hélène Rochas, the maison was unusually open to modernity and experimentation, giving Rabanne a rare platform within an established couture house to test his fascination with unconventional materials and construction.

Rabanne pioneered the use of unconventional materials in dressmaking.

This period proved crucial in shaping his design philosophy, bridging the refined Parisian sophistication of Rochas with Rabanne’s emerging vision of fashion as structure, provocation and modern art.

Paco Rabanne undoubtedly revolutionised twentieth-century fashion by rejecting tradition tailoring in favour of construction, engineering and radical materiality.

Since its manufacture in 1967, the dress has been held in a private collection in London. The current owner, a French-British private citizen, was a close friend of Hélène Rochas, who gifted her the dress from her personal collection. During a house move, Rochas also gifted the owner furniture, making it likely that the dress was given at the same time.

Sally He believes the piece was made specifically for Rochas. “In 1967 Paco Rabanne did not yet have a ready-to-wear division, so this dress was likely created as a bespoke piece. It would not have retailed, which strongly suggests it was made for Madame Rochas herself before being passed to the current owner.”

Hélène Rochas, born Hélène Delangle, was the widow of couturier Marcel Rochas and a central figure in post-war Parisian fashion and culture. Her circle included artists and writers such as Salvador Dalí, Man Ray, Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard and Max Ernst.

More than a muse, Rochas was an active collaborator and cultural producer, photographed by Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, and widely credited with shaping a new ideal of Parisian chic. After Marcel Rochas’ death in 1955, she assumed control of the couture house and transformed it into a major fragrance business, extending the influence of the Rochas name well beyond fashion.

2026 marks the 60 year anniversary of the Paco Rabanne brand, giving the appearance of this early, and likely bespoke, example historical resonance.

A similar 1967 Paco Rabanne armour dress is held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and was exhibited in The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion, 6 May to 9 August 2009 (Object no. 2008.305). Related works have appeared at auction, including a similar armour dress sold at Bonhams Paris in April 2025 and another example sold at Kerry Taylor Auctions in December 2020.