Rabanne Explores the Poetry of Movement in Its High Summer 2026 Campaign

For its latest High-Summer 2026 campaign, “The Pulse,” Rabanne turns toward the emotional rhythms of Southern Spain, exploring the relationship between fashion, movement, and cultural memory through the lens of flamenco. Following last year’s “Sunset to Sunrise” campaign in Rio de Janeiro, Rabanne’s new chapter unfolds in Andalucía, where tension replaces release and collective ritual becomes the visual anchor. Marking the house’s 60th anniversary, the campaign also signals a return to the Spanish roots of founder Paco Rabanne, whose futuristic designs long centered on the body in motion—metallic surfaces catching light, silhouettes amplifying sensation, and garments that transformed movement into spectacle.   

Directed by Emmanuel Cossu and shaped under the creative direction of the house’s creative director, Julien Dossena, the campaign resists folkloric nostalgia in favor of something more raw and lived-in. Shot in Sevilla and El Rocío, “The Pulse” captures intimate gestures—from hands clapping and fabric shifting to bodies gathering—as flamenco becomes a shared current of energy, not just performance. Featuring dancer Carmen Avilés, members of the Farruquito lineage, and a new generation of Andalusian creatives, the imagery oscillates between documentary realism and cinematic stylization, set to an original score from guitarist and composer Yerai Cortés. 

Dossena and Cossu spoke with Whitewall about rhythm as narrative structure, filming in Andalucía, balancing authenticity with fashion imagery, and building a campaign shaped by emotion, movement, and collective intensity.

Reconnecting with Spain

WHITEWALL: Emmanuel, how did your collaboration with Rabanne begin?

EMMANUEL COSSU: It began through a shared desire to explore movement, rhythm, and emotion in a very physical way. There was an immediate alignment around creating something instinctive, immersive, and connected to culture through lived experience rather than representation.

“Flamenco carries an intensity that felt very close to Rabanne,”

-Julien Dossena.

WW: Julien, the campaign connects to Rabanne’s Spanish roots through flamenco. What interested you about exploring it and reflecting that DNA in the work?

JULIEN DOSSENA: Flamenco carries an intensity that felt very close to Rabanne—emotionally, physically, rhythmically. It’s about tension, movement, sensuality, transmission. Returning to Spain for the sixtieth anniversary felt instinctive.

WW: When shooting in Andalucía, what did you feel the place gave you that a constructed location couldn’t?

JD: Andalucía has a very particular emotional texture—in the light, the architecture, the rhythm of people, the atmosphere of the streets. You cannot recreate that tension or density artificially. We chose locations in the center Sevilla, such as a dance school and the streets. We also went to the very peculiar, even sacred, place of El Rocío.

Rhythm as Narrative

WW: The campaign references “pulse” and compás as emotional and visual structures. How did rhythm shape the way you filmed movement, bodies, and space?

EC: Rhythm shaped everything. The camera movement, the editing, the way bodies interacted with space. We approached rhythm almost like a physical tension that slowly builds and releases. Throughout the campaign, rhythm emerges not only through music and dance, but also through editing, gesture, and atmosphere. The film moves fluidly between fashion imagery and portraiture, allowing the viewer to experience Andalucía through fragments: a crowded procession, the swish of a dress, a breath between movements. Rather than framing flamenco as spectacle, the campaign approaches it as a living emotional language—one passed between generations and embedded in everyday life.

“Life does not exist in one register only,”

–Emmanuel Cossu.

WW: The work moves between fashion film, portraiture, documentary, and music video. What does that hybrid offer?

EC: It allows more freedom emotionally. Life does not exist in one register only, and I think the project needed that fluidity to feel immersive, contemporary, and human. The question of representation also sits at the center of “The Pulse.” While the campaign draws on familiar Andalusian iconography—polka dots, fans, roses, the silhouette of the bailaora—it consciously avoids flattening flamenco into aesthetic shorthand. Instead, it emphasizes collaboration, immersion, and emotional specificity, allowing the campaign’s imagery to emerge from within the culture rather than merely referencing it from the outside.

Beyond Iconography

WW: Andalucía is pictured through iconography like polka dots, fans, roses, and the silhouette of the bailaora. What did you want to keep from that received image, and what did you want to refuse or rewrite?

JD: I wasn’t interested in reproducing clichés or creating nostalgia. What mattered was keeping the emotional truth and the physicality of the culture while allowing it to feel contemporary, immediate, and lived-in.

EC: What interested us was the idea of fully embracing a culture in all its richness. In a world that feels increasingly globalized and visually uniform, there’s something refreshing and culturally powerful about leaning into the specificity of a place—its colors, its symbols, its gestures, its energy.

“What mattered was keeping the emotional truth and the physicality of the culture,”

–Julien Dossena.

WW: This campaign sits in a larger conversation about global houses engaging cultures outside traditional fashion capitals. Where do you draw the line between honoring a culture and consuming it? Did that shape your choices?

JD: Absolutely. The most important thing was approaching the project with respect, listening, and collaboration. We worked with people who truly belong to this culture and allowed their voices and presence to shape the film authentically.

EC: For me, the line is very much about intention and immersion. From a visual storytelling point of view, it was a real pleasure to stage Rabanne’s flamenco-inspired dresses because beyond the Andalusian references, what was offered to us was a fully reinterpreted and deeply immersive Rabanne universe. The richness of the textures, the intensity of the colors, and of course the house’s iconic silver elements gave the imagery its strength and singularity. It never felt like “using” a culture from the outside, but rather entering into a dialogue between Andalusian influences and Rabanne’s own visual language.

A Shared Language of Movement

WW: After Rio and now Andalucía, Rabanne is building a dialogue around rhythm and collective energy. What connects these worlds for you creatively?

JD: Both places share a strong relationship between rhythm, community, and the body. The emotional expression is different, but the intensity is similar. That collective energy feels very connected to Rabanne.