Straight Talk: The Ralph Rucci problem, continued.

One has to wonder how a designer who's collection is on the same level or higher than the most important couture houses in Europe could remain almost permanently off the radar of fashion magazines the world over. With the exception of his ad campaign shot by Steven Meisel over the last 2 years, there is rarely if ever a sighting of his work in the editorial pages. Otherwise, one fails to see even that. The problem that irked me most was the almost deliberate refusal of these magazine and newspaper editors who had pride of place in the front rows of his shows. Anna Wintour was never in attendance, either here or when Rqlph showed the Couture in Paris.I have a problem with that as it makes little sense considering the description of her job.


The implied dismissal by a press that should know the difference between the mediocre and the divine, I know, big sweeping word, divine, but to many, including me, that's precisely what it IS. What were they so afraid of? Perhaps, his work would overshadow the formulaic contributions of others. Maybe modernity trumps the mundane. Possibly, it came down to whomever pays for ads gets to play on the swings. That rule is a very slippery one as so many exceptions are made. The Vogue Fund with its council partnership is just the perfect example. Check out the Ovation channel to see just how the "system" works.

My anger doesn't do anything but creates division and bad feeling, mostly for me. Ralph is a very Zen person. How can you create in the way he does and be anything but. His world is one filled with an appreciation for every single detail and element that conspires to be a thing of beauty. He's like a composer who's capable of playing every instrument in the orchestra. That is a wondrous thing to behold. It exists only rarely in precious few.

Perhaps this is an example of the new regime. Control is the new term for team playing. The owner rescues a struggling concern and then dictates without prior experience in the field. The designer must now march to the owner's beat or else... It happens everywhere now. The contract a designer signs serves management and benefits the designer, only temporarily. Management now controls the long game, the short game is the domain of the designing squirrels scrambling to get a nut.

It looks as though largess of the sort slithers from the hands of editors-in-chief to the head office of conglomerates. The tops of the mast heads "suggest" to the LVMHs, Kerings, Puigs to bestow plum creative directorships to the same stable of 10 spreading around their mediocrity.  Throw around a name often enough, move them through a few old and true design houses and you may even create a new brand in the process. Fashion clearly takes the backseat. Few people seem to see it that way and yet it's writ large on every surface, shop window and page. It's something to consider. The new mediocrity is here. All else left the building before the opening credits.

I'm sure Ralph Rucci will be fine, even better than fine, happy even. At least he no longer has to submit to the whims of people who are better suited as extras on some regrettable Fashion based reality show. The conversation appears to focus on who will replace him. High stakes fashion has become a blood sport. One gladiator is mauled by the Emperor and another is thrown to the lions.

It's unfortunate.

ALT's Latest Labor of Luxe: Numero Magazine

As the new International Editor-at-Large at Numero magazine, Andre Leon Talley has shed his Vogue skin of the last 30 years and taken the helm of a new and very interesting magazine for Russia. Upon first hearing of his departure and the ascension of Hamish Bowles, the arch new lady in waiting to Anna Wintour, I was puzzled and not the tiniest bit skeptical. Why leave such an august world, one that has entre' into the highest echelons of fashion, culture, art and that rarest of worlds, the beau monde? Then I realized that ALT is a card carrying member of that rarest of worlds and has been long before Vogue came knocking. Shifting from Editor-at-large to Contributing editor and the phasing out of "Life with Andre"one of the more amusing and informative columns of the magazine all felt like a jolt to the status quo. Why would he take such a drastic turn and leave a position that one would think was not only lucrative but also powerful in a business where walking tall (he's VERY tall) and carrying a big stick is the ultimate dream? It wasn't until I spied Numero magazine volume 001 with Naomi Campbell towering on the cover like an otherworldly Amazon looking down at the world and all of us who worship at the alter of la mode.

Opening to the very first page with the requisite ad and the following 4 with more ads I was struck by the beauty and variety of images by the advertisers. There was something strangely different. It was not so much an act of looking at the pages but actually seeing them. This curious pull to the eye and the senses continued with stories on architecture (interesting homes/structures not drowning in pedigree and provenance with a smug society doyenne leaning against a wall of ancient hand-screened walls a la Japonaise), art, artists, interviews with a slew of designers from Hedi Slimane to Gareth Pugh and Ulyanna Sergeenko the latest couturier to emerge from Russia. Now the fly in the ointment to a large degree is the fact that the issue is 9/10 written in Russian. Fortunately many of the interviews and profiles appear at the back of the book in English translation. Still, there is something powerful about one's limited ability to read text. One is instead forced to take the measure of the magazine purely on its aesthetic merits and they are many.

ALT is clearly in charge. It shows from the very first to the last page. I asked him how much of the editorial pages, the covers, the stories and sittings was he involved in and he said, simply "All of it". It brought to mind the days several years back when he would descend upon the house of Oscar de la Renta just days before the collection and style the complete show, add (copiously) looks and edit (at times drastically) the clothes to make a cohesive and exciting presentation. Those were the last days that Oscar de la Renta commanded the runway and press. Andre's unerring eye makes the stories fresh and surprisingly accessible. Each issue has several pages of shoes, jewelry and accessories shot alone in collage form showing only the item against a blank ground. Those images make you want to shop.

Speaking of shopping, which used to be the function of fashion magazines, the editorial pages are a feast of color, graphically dynamic mixes of looks and atmosphere that is at once foreign yet seductive. To say that the book has a friendliness to it would be an over simplification. It's effect is more like a visual seduction and stimulation of the senses. When was the last time you had that experience looking at a fashion magazine? There's warmth and an invitation to enter Andre's world. All 6 issues thus far cleave to the same formula, with each better than the last. He and his team of editors and photographers are more assured with each issue.

Andre' Leon Talley, with his various projects (ANTM judge, lecturer, writer, curator, university trustee) shows through Numero magazine that the world of Conde' Nast is perhaps too small a platform. This is a man in his prime with a lifetime of the most extraordinary experiences putting them all to use. Underneath those majestic robes and hyperbole is a man on a mission. The world isn't large enough for his contributions but that isn't stopping him for a second. Numero magazine is one more grander stage for him to share his unique gifts with the rest of the world.

White Noise.

Joan Smalls Vogue September 2013

  
Diversity in fashion, that ugly, fear inducing word that raises its unruly head every 10 seasons or so has once again become the battle cry of the disenfranchised. Looking through a handful of magazines rife with (September) issues brought that point home in a staggeringly BIG way. The endless parade of collections from here, London, Paris, Milan, Hell and back are all a sea of sameness. Sullen, soulless faces of androgynous men and women, all pale and blonde with the occasional almond eyed Asian and in all of that army of recruits you might see one person of color. What I'm trying to say in plain English is this: there's one black face or none at all. This has become the rule and no longer the exception. The list of designers who no longer feel that a black model has relevance, beauty, allure, sex appeal or at least, the ability to "sell" a look, this list of designers is about as long as Vogue's September issue is heavy. I was shocked. You'll be shocked too. Actually, I'm not shocked or even surprised and I'd hazard to guess that many of you reading this won't be either.

Looking through all 902 pages of September Vogue I counted about 10 black girls in ads and there were 1000's of ads. In the editorial pages I saw maybe 2 in total and that wasn't until I got to page 848. There in the "back of the proverbial bus" of the mag was Joan Smalls in a lonely spread wearing some great coats. Sure, she had 8 pages and looked fantastic but nevertheless, it stung like an afterthought. It was as if someone said," Um, I'm like, not, like, sure if we remembered to have, like, A black girl in a story." And someone else said, "Geez, um, like get someone, like to call someone who, um, like has one and get her over here. And find some stuff we forgot to shoot." "Oh, and also, stick a wig on her head." A hollow victory. Believe me, I'm not someone with a clicker counting all the brown faces on a runway or in the pages of a magazine, but hey, when it's stark white I wonder who forgot diversity.

I guess we have Paula Dean to thank for opening up the discussion once again. That chicken frying, bucket o'grits slinging shrew who barely cooks but makes her fortune on the backs of her underpaid, under-appreciated staff of black women and men, has fo' pawed her way to infamy. That's some of the nastiest, small minded white noise I've listened to in a dog's age.

On BalanceDiversity.com I came across a scathing letter written by "The Coalition" addressing this issue.  They were penned and sent the governing bodies of International Fashion Week (MBNYFW, London, Paris and Milan) stating that this appalling absence of diversity and overt racism is no longer acceptable. For each location the Coalition goes 1 league further to name the designers whose women's and menswear collections have been found guilty of this racism.When you consider that most of these shows average about 50 exits with one model per look and not more than maybe one of those models is black, that's quite a pointed statement being made.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, response will come from the industry. I expect it will be a roar of just more white noise.

...and now the lights have dimmed, the music rises and the shows begin.