HE VERDICT IS IN: couture designer Ralph Rucci’s moment is at hand. After 25 years in the business of working in relative obscurity, the fashion world is finally waking up and taking notice of this enormously talented designer. Mr Rucci is a hybrid: part artist, part couturier. There hasn’t been a designer like him since James Galanos and Mainbocher. And he’s got the kudos of some of the industry’s biggest guns to prove it. In the world of fashion, he is the straight parfum, not watered-down cologne.
   In 2002, he was propelled into the spotlight when he became the first American designer since the legendary Mainbocher to be invited by the Chambre Syndicale to present an haute couture collection. Doneger Group forecaster, David Wolfe, states, ‘John Galliano is yesterday and Ralph Rucci is tomorrow. Mr Rucci has taste in a world of dumbed-down culture. His tasteful sensitivity will be seen as the next big thing. I seldom get this way, not since I saw my first Armani collection in 1971.’
   Luxurious womenswear has always been Rucci’s hallmark. In 1994, he opened Chado Ralph Rucci, chado being the name of a centuries-old traditional Japanese tea ceremony. The designer chose this word to represent the qualities he wished to evoke and explore through fashion. Chado also symbolizes the unity and dedication of the talented staff that he has developed throughout the years.
   According to Neiman Marcus Fashion Director, Joan Kaner, who has been a friend and supporter for ten years, Rucci runs a tight crew, miniscule by comparison to his peers’. There is no staff of design assistants in the wings, and only Rucci himself designs. Ana Rita does the pattern making and fitting, and Vivian Van Natta, with him from the beginning, runs sales, production, and PR. His sister, Rosina, works by his side in the atelier.
   Although he’s been in the Seventh Avenue game for years, few people truly know this enigmatic designer well. Mrs Kaner, who Rucci fondly calls ‘the Kaner’ and ‘my Carmel Snow’, is one of the few who does. ‘Ralph has a marvellous fun-loving sense of humour. I’ve been up in the studio when Ana Rita, Vivian and Ralph are carrying on. They can be side-splittingly funny. He’s very warm, close to his family, and generous to a fault.’
   In person, he looks like a modern-day El Greco come to life, his airy white showroom is a pod of tranquility. When Rucci begins a new collection, it is ‘tabla rasa,’ he explains. ‘I need a completely clear departure point each time I design a collection.’ That’s not to say that he won’t start one of his prints if he’s inspired by say, a chunk of Egyptian hieroglyphic.
   Lucire witnessed part of the creative process in a recent studio visit. After an impromptu visit from New York Times writer, Cathy Horyn, the designer drapes an enormous sheet of tracing paper around Ana Rita. Covering the sheet is the “Bedouin-inspired” design he’s created specifically for Madame X’s gown. It boggles the mind to think how long it must have taken him to draw it.
   Another client, Tatiana Sorokko, wife of US west coast gallery owner Serge Sorokko, has known Rucci since the ’90s. They first met during her modelling days, and she probably owns the largest collection of Chado Ralph Rucci clothing on the west coast and wears it almost exclusively, preferring ‘to have dialogue with one single designer.’ She is one of the women Rucci considers to possess both style and glamour, although Ms Sorokko describes herself as ‘unfashionable, but with a certain style.’
   Glamour, Rucci says, ‘is an allure that pulls you into their personage. The most glamorous thing is to be seduced by someone’s intelligence.’
   His muses are the women he dresses, not the usual Hollywood red-carpet walkers most of his contemporaries aspire to dress. Over the past five years, Mr Rucci credits his showing in the couture arena for giving him ‘a lightness of hand’. The couture liberated him as a designer. It enabled him to let go of certain formulas and to have the confidence to go back to the roots of what he appreciates and designs.
   Rucci is also enamoured of fine fabrics. He has a long-standing love affair with double face and previously extinct fabrics, such as hammered satin. He recalls reverentially, ‘As a young guy, I used to write down the names of the mills they used to credit in Vogue for future reference.’ Among the names were Abraham and Bucol. Years later, when he could afford the fabrics, he was able to talk the mills into making them again. In fact, many of them responded with delight. By doing so, Rucci has helped to keep alive ‘the calibre of beauty and luxury that must exist.’ He is vehement about this topic.
   Contemporaries such as Michael Kors, appreciate the quality of his designs and his quest for perfection. Says Kors, ‘Ralph Rucci harkens back to designers like Galnaos. [Editor’s note: Galanos was Rucci’s mentor]. I love the fact that his clothes can appear to be so simple and understated, and at the same time be incredibly opulent and intricate.’
   Although recognition is finally coming Rucci’s way, the biggest prize still eludes him. He has been nominated twice for the CFDA Designer of the Year Award, but has never taken it home. Insiders say that this is certainly not due to a lack of talent but rather to the politics and commercialism that go hand-in-hand with the award. He does, though, have big players in his corner, such as Harper’s Bazaar, a supporter for years.

Vivian Galtier Kelly is correspondent for Lucire.

Glamour, Rucci says, ‘is an allure that pulls you into their personage. The most glamorous thing is to be seduced by someone’s intelligence’

TOP: Ralph Rucci. ABOVE: From various collections in couture and prêt-à-porter, ranging from spring 2004 to fall 2005.