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5 8 THE FASHION DESIGN REFERENCE + SPECIFICATION BOOK
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Where do you start with the design process when developing a new collection? And
why that first?
Two things begin the process. One, I start where I left off with a concept from the
previous collection, as the first step in a new evolution, or from a curiosity that I
haven’t explored the idea enough. And, simultaneously, I go back to certain images
because they stimulate me in some way—right now, I’m working on concepts and
images as varied as Shogun armor to eighteenth-century French chinoiserie reinter-
preted, to modern canvases by Adolph Gottlieb. Then there are some solemn im-
ages that I always look at.
As I begin my research, I’m thinking constantly, and at the same time choosing fab-
rics and trying to come up with a base color for the collection that is not colorful. I
don’t feel comfortable working in color so I have to find a color that’s a non-color. Or
I’ll attack a color like a bright pink or a chartreuse and try to calm it down among all
the gray and taupe and black. After the fabrics are ordered, I literally encase myself
in a room with images on boards and rough sketches and I begin.
The first step of having a toile made is very difficult for me because it’s as if it’s a
symbolic piece and I have to choose it wisely. Once I see the toile, then I start run-
ning with the ideas, sketching, draping, working with the fabric. Often, I will make
a painting, have a digital image taken of it, and transfer the screened image onto
cloth. I’ll paint another canvas and then put the cloth, the chiffon or something, the
transparency, on top of that painting. We’ve done this now every season for a couple
of years. Last season I just used an illustration of a planet, which we magnified, but
this season the paintings have provided the springboard into the new work, which is
very vaporous, mysterious smokelike images.
Do you consider fashion an art form? And why?
Those two words are interrelated. Fashion is not art: It’s the couturier who brings
the art to the fashion, and it’s done through the matching of techniques and the
vocabulary coming out of the atelier. So when they say fashion is not art, it’s rightly
said, but it’s the couturier who is the artist. And if you look at the work of Vionnet
or Grès or Balenciaga or Courrèges, you undoubtedly cannot say that this is not art.
Then there’s a whole list of names you can mention that clearly suggests that fash-
ion is not art.
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PERSPECTIVES: RALPH RUCCI
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Did you have a mentor in the fashion industry? What did you take away from that relationship
that serves you today?
Yes, conceptually, it’s clearly been Cristóbal Balenciaga. In the early 1970s when I was in col-
lege I discovered a man working in New York who was also from the school of Balenciaga. And
I came to New York to work for him. His name was Halston and he was a genius. The third
person is a man whom I consider a dear friend; the way he has worked and lived I admire so
much, and now he is a mentor in many ways, and that’s James Galanos.
Have you assumed the role of mentor for someone else?
You know, that’s a good question. So many young people come in here and we start them as
interns, we see that they have promise, and they’re hired. For example, there’s a young man
in the studio right now, and I recognize in him so much of myself when I was his age. So I sup-
pose they would say, yes, but it’s not a question for me to answer.
How important is the history of fashion to your creative process?
Essential. I am adamant and almost rude about my expectations that editors and also buyers
have an encyclopedic knowledge of our profession to qualify them to judge. How can you talk
about satin structure or jersey draping unless you know who Charles James and Madame
Grès were? And it’s fascinating how many people don’t know who these icons were. I have
no patience for these people. I approach my profession as an academic also, so I expect
everybody around me to know when I make references. My staff is genius, in this respect.
Your work is known for its fine and intricate detail. With an industry that is losing skilled fash-
ion craftspeople with every passing generation, what do you think fashion education programs
should include in their curriculum to best prepare designers looking to enter the market?
The question of skill is important today because what is being presented as fashion and the
prices at which they’re established is so horrifying. Certain critics of my career say I’m from
the old school, which I find terribly insulting because there is no such thing as “old school”
if you do it correctly. What’s being accepted today as passable is ludicrous. You have $4,000
(£2,500) garments made with merrow machines and plastic buttons, no interfacing or interfac-
ing that’s peeling off because it’s not been pressed. And here’s what certain members of the
press have said to try to cover up for it: The clothes otherwise have a matronly look. When
they throw into play the age game, they immediately frighten all the young people, so rags are
now expected. This makes me angry. I am not a stickler, but I believe that quality clothing,
clothing with integrity, is made a certain way and there are no shortcuts.
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6 0 THE FASHION DESIGN REFERENCE + SPECIFICATION BOOK
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Anybody that wants to be a good designer had better be able to conceive a garment, sketch it,
fabricate it, drape it, make the paper pattern, cut it out, sew it, and fit it. Too many designers
want to skip to being photographed arriving at a party with a dress on a starlet attached to
their arm. There’s been a big disintegration.
You are often described as a designer’s designer, much like Balenciaga in his day. How does
that impact your brand and in what ways does it allow you to connect with your customer?
Those who know who Balenciaga was and what he did—it’s a great compliment for me. I’m
stunned by it and I’m humbled because I haven’t even come close to the body of work that he
mastered. Does it impact my brand? No, because most people don’t know what he did for the
vocabulary of fashion. And when certain journalists draw the comparison I think they’re talking
about the rigor and the constant seeking of new ways of making clothes and cutting clothes. I
have a dear friend, Cathy Horyn, a brilliant journalist from the New York Times. When I showed
my first couture collection in Paris, it was very, very strict. I thought the collection was beauti-
ful—it was really an homage to the haute couture—and Cathy said, “I know what you’re doing,
but ease up a little bit.” Over the years I’ve agreed with her, I have taken that in. You can still
have the rigor, you can have all the black gazar, black velvet, and black faille that you want,
but really you also have to interject the work with enormous sensuality, because everybody
wants to be desirable. I’ve always adored the monastic element that Balenciaga brought to
fashion but what I also seek is to bring in the sexual aspect so that the woman feels desir-
able. Otherwise, very few women will want to walk around in a black gazar tent, which I find
the chicest thing in the world.
How does the issue of sustainability affect your design process?
I’ve always used natural fabrics. I don’t use synthetics, never did and don’t wish to. I’ve been
ecologically minded just because I like real fabrics.
What advice would you give designers starting their career or a business?
Continue to reinspire yourself. Keep a focus and a clarity and do not let go of your vision, no
matter how many people try to tell you that it’s not of the moment. Destiny provides the final
explanation, I think. And even though we’ve been in years of homogenized fashion, there are
sparks of brilliance all over the place.
It’s very difficult for young people now. When I entered the profession, individuality was so
respected and admired. You had the building of 550 in New York, you had Pauline Trigère, Nor-
man Norell, Bill Blass, and the great Geoffrey Beene, and you had Galanos on the West Coast,
and everyone had their own look. Today individuality is discouraged. We also no longer have an
American fashion industry where these kids can seek a job. There are very few design rooms
left. Most of these clothes are made in the Orient. The samples are not made with artistry,
they’re done with measurements and no life. I find that very disappointing and just depressing
for students.
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Have you diversified your design work? If so, how? And if not, why?
We do have a store in Korea. Although we’ve done some pieces that we sell out of the show-
room, I haven’t yet created a full-fledged home collection. It’s something I look forward to get-
ting into, because I’m obsessed with things for the home.
It’s essential to have global distribution, today more than ever, because economically we can’t
depend on our own markets to carry a business. All of the most important retailers in the
country are in a state of fright and panic and have cut their budgets. Everyone is waiting for
this year to unfold to see what kind of losses we’re going to experience. The problem for my
clothes is that they’re very expensive, and by the time you distribute them in Europe, the price
is three times higher.
This is one of the main reasons why about a year ago I eliminated the distinction between
haute couture and prêt-à-porter. I have the spring collection or the fall collection and they’re
filled with elements of each. If you make a suit, say, and you put it in the couture collection
and it’s all done by hand and so on, well then that suit is expected to cost $57,000 (£35,350) or
something like that. A year ago I was working on vibrations of silk tulle, cashmere, and wool,
where we take strips of fabric and stitch them on silk tulle. The technique gives the feeling
of utter tailoring with inner structure, but the dresses or jackets or coats are weightless and
totally transparent. I said, now this is absurd. If I offer this in couture then perhaps three
women will be able to wear the garment. But if I put it in the ready-to-wear, it retails at $17,000
(£10,550) and you sell thirty of them. And you make a difference in apparel. Because I have my
own workrooms, I was able to evolve the vibration technique, to do it in a new way, to do it bit
faster so I could lower the price and have greater distribution. The concept remains couture.
The essence, the approach is still couture, but the accessibility makes the collection a little
more alive, more aware.
How do you strike a balance between the theater of the runway and the reality of retail?
I don’t show anything on the runway that I don’t produce. There isn’t a separate collection
house that buyers are going to see for sales. What I show is what I sell. And I will not put
things in the collection that are necessary commercially, because we don’t sell them. A
notched collar jacket with a set-in sleeve is not something that anybody desires from me.
What I am working on for the fall presentation is very conceptual. It has to do with, I suppose,
eccentricity. No one needs anything. Our clients certainly don’t need anything. The element
of creating desire, to be desired, is what I’m working on. And here’s the test, you could spend
hundreds of thousands of dollars on clothes, but if you look good in a white Hanes T-shirt and
a pair of jeans, that’s it. Everything else is superfluous.
Overleaf Paintings, left to right: Peering into the Void, Glimpse, Intentio, and Chado, 2007.
Spring 2008
Collection. Photographs courtesy of Chado Ralph Rucci.
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