19 posts tagged "Ruffian"
“Palm” Thursday
Context changes everything. “Where you show a collection affects the way people view it,” Ruffian’s Brian Wolk explained last night at the label’s after-party—and perhaps, by extension, how a pair of designers see themselves. This season, Wolk and partner Claude Morais (left) showed at the tents for the first time ever, and dressed up accordingly in coat and tie. This was partially out of respect for Lincoln Center—”where Balanchine choreographed ballets and where Maria Callas sang,” Wolk remarked—but largely out of deference to the collection’s muse, an adventuring diplomat named Susan Travers. “It didn’t seem respectful to her not to dress the way she would have wanted her lover or husband to dress,” Wolk said.
And for the post-show celebration? Michael’s, the storied power-lunch spot where she would have wanted to munch on caviar and jumbo shrimp surrounded by blue-chip art and eighties haute design. The midtown restaurant has been seeing an injection of young blood lately—including, last night, Lance Bass and models Fernanda Motta and Julie Ordon. “We love to design clothing for women who live in cities with the word ‘Palm’ in them,” Wolk wisecracked. As might be expected, those women were elsewhere.
First College, Now Spring Break
Today I’m in sunny Saint-Tropez for Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel Resort show, but last Thursday I was in hot and balmy Savannah at the city’s College of Art and Design for a panel discussion with Ruffian’s Brian Wolk and Claude Morais (that’s us onstage). Sandwiched between Keegan Singh’s talk on styling and Hamish Bowles’ lecture on collecting couture, my Ruffian pals and I spoke about the relationship between designers and critics. The students had plenty of tough questions: What do you base your reviews on (for my part, it’s primarily about how the current collection compares to the designers’ previous work, and secondly, how it fits within the context of the season), are you easier on young designers than more established ones (constructive criticism is our specialty), and, for the Ruffians, how do reviews affect what you do the next season? Apropos of that, on a tour of Flannery O’Connor’s modest childhood home, the guide told us O’Connor’s collected Complete Stories won the National Book Award in 1972, eight years after her death. Brian and Claude joked that it was a good lesson to remember when the tough reviews come in.
SCAD’s Night Of The Stars—Give Or Take One Or Two
That volcano in Iceland has been cramping everyone’s style lately, and the Savannah College of Art and Design is no exception. Two of the recipients of last night’s 2010 SCAD Style Étoile Awards, Catherine Deneuve and Sir David Tang, had to cancel their trips. But the show went on. Luckily for Tang, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (pictured, with Michael Douglas), was in town and perfectly willing to accept on her half brother’s behalf—although even she nearly didn’t make it. “I’ve run down the street,” Fergie explained from the podium, where she was still catching her breath.
Once she did, she quoted Lord Chesterfield from Tang’s speech: “Style is the very clothing of thought”—an appropriate sentiment for a small-scale evening devoted to celebrating, in SCAD president Paula Wallace’s words, innovators “who change the way we walk, we talk, we think.”
Among them: Graydon Carter, Peter Arnell, and decorators John Rosselli and Bunny Williams. The well-connected design school is also gearing up for the ten-day series of lectures and events it will be hosting later this month on its Georgia campus, an annual meeting of fashion minds that has introduced the likes of Marc Jacobs, Karl Lagerfeld, and John Galliano to home-fried Southern hospitality in the past. “It’s always inspiring. I love the questions and also to give those kids a bit of hope and some realness,” Ruffian’s Claude Morais explained. “We also get a lot of our interns from SCAD, too,” his partner, Brian Wolk, added. So does interior designer Jonathan Adler: “I have a whole cadre of them working for me,” he said.
Ruffian’s Heirs Apparent
“Simplicity looks fresh again,” Ruffian’s Claude Morais said at the Ace Hotel last night. He and partner Brian Wolk were sipping Champagne in the hotel’s basement Liberty Lounge to celebrate the arrival of Threads & Heirs, their debut menswear collection for Macy’s. And even if the goods were not quite what you’d expect from the frills-and-frips Ruffian boys, the guys assembled—including Lorenzo Martone, who came on the arm of Jessica White; Paper magazine’s Luigi Tadini, who hosted the fête (pictured above, with Wolk and Morais); and Timo Weiland—all looked well pleased. “We’re pretty classic American boys,” Wolk told Style.com at the announcement of the collaboration with the historic retailer, and here were classic American pieces: seersucker jackets, short-sleeved cotton button-downs, military-inspired flak jackets. Classic boys, maybe, but not boys-only. “I have a rack of pieces in the studio and I have to keep asking them to send me more,” Morais said with a laugh. “The girls keep grabbing the polos, the cardigans.” As if on cue, a Ruffian gal in a striped men’s polo floated by.
Did We Just Find Out Marc Jacobs’ Valentine’s Day Plans?
We’re still waiting on details about Marc Jacobs’ after-party, but his other half, Lorenzo Martone, is getting behind events left and right this New York fashion week. His PR and talent agency, ARC New York, is throwing a bash to end the week on the 18th, but before then he’s hosting a Butt magazine Valentine’s Day dance party with cover boy Kele Okereke that he promises will be full of “hot men.” It’s hot chicks, or more specifically, one hot chick named Iris Strubegger, who will be the draw at the dinner he’s hosting on February 12 at the Box for Ruffian designers Brian Wolk and Claude Morais. The catwalker stars alongside vintage Ruffian designs in a new short film, La Demimondaine, by director Sandro Suppnig, that will be screened post-repast.