Ralph Rucci’s spring 2004 collection deserves to make noise, even if he doesn’t rely on smoke-and-mirror publicity trickery, writes Phillip D. Johnson

PHOTOGRAPHED BY RICHARD SPIEGEL AND CHERYL GORSKI PHOTOGRAPHY

HE WORLDS of fashion and big business have a lot in common. One of the truisms in business is that, in many cases, the person who talks the most (the type-A personality), the one who seems to be most visibly politicking when (s)he should be working, is the person who’s the least likely to be able to back up his or her work, to have something solid to augment the "hard-working whizz-kid" reputation (s)he tries so hard to effect.
   The same can be said for the fashion world, especially during the twice-a-year market-week shows. Sometimes, the person with the most smoke-and-mirror effects, with the most packed, front-row celebrity types in tow, the most pre-show hype, in the final analysis, has the least to say once the designs start coming down the runway. It’s almost a situation where too much is done in advance to hide the fact that the king, paraphrasing the well-known children’s fairy tale, is wearing no clothes.
   A good example of this would be Sean John or P. Diddy or Puffy Daddy or ‘potential prisoner 88875223’ at Rikers (or whatever he chooses to call himself this week). Whenever he has a show, whether it’s at the Tents at Bryant Park, at Cipriani’s 42nd Street or down on Wall Street, you can count on one thing: it’s going to be the noisiest, ballyhoo you will ever encounter. It’s not for nothing that each time he makes an appearance during Fashion Week that the contingent force from the New York Police Department increases exponentially, with their numbers going into the hundreds. The sea of blue would blind a whale.
   Mercifully, the design king-in-waiting Ralph Rucci operates on a totally different level. Over the years, mothers all over the world (and actress Kirstie Alley in her hilariously funny Pier One television commercials) cautioned their kids to speak ‘with their indoor voices’. Throughout his very illustrious career, Ralph Rucci has chosen to use his indoor voice by allowing his designs to speak for themselves. The enduring elegance, calm and grace that are an inherent part of every Rucci design are tied into his philosophy that his ‘clothes evolve one season at a time [with] every collection [building] on the past, [thus allowing a woman’s clothes to] become a subtle reflection of her own personality.’
   Whatever "noise" he makes comes well before the first model steps out on the runway. This involves working closely with the mills to create exciting, new fabrics, going back into the archives to study and revive historically important cloths and designs, designing his own prints and working with other talented artisans (such as those at the House of Lesage Paris) to find hand-work that is not only unique but fits into the current theme of the collection he is working on. He knows his fabrics, using only the best from manufacturers such as Bucol, Luigi Colombo, Lanificio di Sordevolo, Sfate & Combier and Luigi Verga, to name a few. After 23 years in the business, Mr Rucci continues to establish a signature voice, which has grown even stronger with this latest collection.
   Since he has begun showing his Chado Ralph Rucci Haute Couture collection in Paris (with the gracious permission of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture), Mr Rucci has only gotten better as times goes by. Whatever the cost to the company (because he self-finances all the showings of his various collections), Mr Rucci reaps major benefits that continues to bode well for his future.

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