The Reckoning: Ralph Rucci at F.I.T. (NYT review)

[DosViolines]

nytimes.com

January 18, 2007
Critic’s Notebook
The Reckoning: Ralph Rucci at F.I.T.

By CATHY HORYN

COMMENTATORS on the designer Ralph Rucci tend to vigorously defend him, as though there may be some doubt about his talent.

In the catalog for a new retrospective of Mr. Rucci’s work, at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the curator Valerie Steele spends a good deal of time admonishing journalists, in particular, for not appreciating the art and complexity of Mr. Rucci’s designs. Over and over she seems to be saying, “They just don’t get it.”

Well, they do get it, but does it really matter here? In another medium (a newspaper, say), what did or didn’t go right in Mr. Rucci’s career might be meaningful, even affecting. After all, Mr. Rucci did spend many years working under the radar, and not by choice. While he had admirers, it was only after he decided to show his clothes in Paris, in 2002, that he finally got the recognition nowadays commonly awarded to lesser talents.

But in a museum, where presumably subjects are chosen because their stuff is good, these kinds of details feel prosaic and actually are beside the point. Ms. Steele and the other curators must have been struck by the thought, since they raise it, that if Mr. Rucci belongs to the heroic ranks of Balenciaga, Madame Grès and Halston, why are they bothering to defend their man?

Belief in himself led Mr. Rucci to do many of the things he did as a designer, but belief is generally blind, and it would have helped the exhibition if there had been more straightforward explanation of his dressmaking techniques. The show is called “The Art of Weightlessness,” and while you get this idea from a series of gowns suspended from the ceiling, their skirts mushrooming open like Anish Kapoor sculpture, it isn’t entirely clear how or why double-faced cashmere suits or a warriorlike alligator ensemble are weightless.

For years, Mr. Rucci has been extremely well served, as he is the first to say, by assistants and patternmakers, notably Annarita Cavallini and Gail Gondek, who love puzzling over problems of construction. As dazzling as Mr. Rucci’s Infanta gowns look, with their airy volumes and embroidered insets held by tiny suspension threads, it would have been useful to see these structures broken down, to see more of the process.

I don’t mean to suggest that the exhibition is not worth seeing. It is very much worth seeing, for the prime reason that Mr. Rucci has stayed free to create what he likes and, at the same time, run a successful business. He quietly and simply affirms the value of the individual mind. And his is a distinct point of view, influenced by Balenciaga and Japanese symbolism, as well as the abstract canvases of painters like Cy Twombly, which he has playfully interpreted in Parisian needlework.

But in the congestion of mannequins and precious fabrics, the visitor is hard-pressed to see the progress in his work, and ultimately what unites his various influences. Everything is presented to you in a lump, or, anyway, in a series of lumps — the Twombly silks at one end, the leather and sable pieces at the other.

The trouble with this sort of grouping is that you start to become aware that you’re looking at merchandise, instead of seeing themes or connections.

A case in point: You stand in awe before a cream-colored silk jersey dress (from 2003) with a hand-knotted bodice. Yet what is its relation to a severe-looking wool coat from an earlier period or a feathery dress that came later? The answer is that Mr. Rucci made a significant leap when he went to Paris. He took more risks. His clothes became lighter in both spirit and design.

But, as I think about it, that’s not what made the experience of watching those collections so fascinating. The curators keep insisting throughout the catalog that Mr. Rucci’s clothes are timeless. So is a monk’s robe, but that doesn’t mean you want to wear it. Designers can talk about their emotional responses to the world around them, but unless the emotions and the precious fabric translate into something actual, you may just as well be hugging your Stockman dress form.

And that’s what has changed with Mr. Rucci. Yes, his clothes can be worn in any season, on any woman, but now they also look right for the moment.

Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
A FLOCK OF FROCKS One hundred dresses by Ralph Rucci, some flying high, are on view at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. The show, celebrating the house’s first 25 years, continues through April 14.

 

[Dustcakeboy]

Thx for posting.

 

[zamb]

THANKS..........
i need to check it out when im in the area.........

 

[birdofparadise]

It's tricky to take the museum to task in that way as it has to serve the interests of the community as well as the student body. There's something impractical about becoming too esoteric in its approach.