His haute couture is praised as high art

PARIS - Under dim lights and to the beat of electronic music, South Philadelphia-born designer Ralph Rucci floated an exquisite black duchess satin gown down the circular runway in Le Couvent des Cordeliers.

The sleeveless, slightly high-necked bodice glittered. The full skirt was covered with ostrich feathers placed with such exactness, the bottom of the garment looked like one continuous piece of textured velvet. The dress captured the regality that a finale piece should.

"My collection is about how to look and live in a moment when luxury is an excess or trend," Rucci said moments after the last model delicately walked the runway.

"The words young and modern aren't relevant when you are making clothes that express style."

Rucci's ultra-sophisticated 63-look collection closed the runway portion of Paris Fashion Week Sunday night. The collections started under New York's Bryant Park tents in early February and traveled to London and Milan before ending here.

The fact that Rucci closed out the world's style festivities is noteworthy. The designer, who could pass for Patrick Dempsey's older brother, is America's most haute-couture designer, more so than Oscar de la Renta or Carolina Herrera, despite his lack of name recognition.

Rucci is known for his weightless, neutral-toned pieces fashioned from crepe, wool jersey, sable, alligator and even horsehair. They are staples in the closets of women so well off they are recession-proof. Martha Stewart is a dear friend and client.

Rucci's couture techniques - piping on tulle, circular pintucks, and his trademark, suspending pieces of fabric within a garment using what he calls a worm stitch - have won him major design accolades. In 2002, he became the only American designer in 20 years invited by the Paris design council to show his haute-couture collection.

"He's a quiet big deal," said Michael Fink, vice president of the women's fashion department for Saks Fifth Avenue, as he waited for the show to begin. "He is the essence of luxury. When you have something very special, you don't care if anybody else knows it, you know it."

"It was absolutely gorgeous," said Ken Downing, fashion director of Neiman Marcus, minutes before he shook Rucci's hand after the show.

Neiman Marcus has carried Rucci's collection since 1994. It's the department store's most expensive designer line. Sales of Rucci's fashions are in the millions.

On Sunday, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will close its inaugural fashion exhibition in the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman building. "A Passion for Perfection" highlighted the work of locally born designers Gustav Tassell, James Galanos and Rucci. Rucci is a painter and an avid art collector, and his clothes are often referred to as high art.

About half a dozen of the A-line dresses and suits by Rucci were donated by local philanthropist Joan Spain, for whom the Perelman's first-floor fashion gallery is named.

"I have a salmon double-faced cashmere reversible suit with sable cuffs exhibition] that I can't wait to get back," Spain said. "I think it was my first purchase of his ever. I have six, maybe seven pieces of his. His clothing is just so classic and beautiful."

Rucci, 50, grew up in South Philadelphia at 21st and Porter Streets. His father, Emanuel Rucci, was a butcher at a store he inherited from his father, also named Ralph, at 12th and Jackson Streets. Before she married, Rucci's mother, Linda, worked for Barr's Jewelers on Chestnut Street.

As a teenager, Ralph traveled by himself to New York, where he would visit the windows of designer studios and soak in the technique. He always knew he wanted to be a designer, he said.

"He loved Balenciaga. He loved Diana Vreeland, he just seemed to latch on to fashion," Emanuel Rucci said of his son. "He just couldn't get enough of it. We never thought he would project it to such a level."

The family moved between Overbrook and Wynnewood so that Rucci could attend the Waldron Academy for elementary school. He went on to St. Joseph's Prep for high school before enrolling in Temple University to major in philosophy.

"I really did adore the school," Rucci said of St. Joseph's from his studio in New York's SoHo in January. "It fostered my creativity. And it was so chic. You got to wear navy serge pants in the summer and gray flannel in the winter with oxblood ties and shoes. How chic is that?"

He moved in 1978 to New York, where he took technical fashion classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology. There he met his business partner and acting CEO, Vivian Van Natta. After graduation, Rucci landed a job in the made-to-order workrooms at Halston. In 1981, he turned his one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan into a studio.

And launched Ralph Rucci.

In 1994, Rucci introduced his ready-to-wear line, Chado, named after a Japanese tea ceremony. Joan Kater, fashion director of Neiman Marcus at the time, started carrying the collection, which opened Rucci's distribution to a much larger audience.

Over the years, Rucci says, he has refined his hand to the point that he is making garments so light that the construction appears seamless. All of the finishing, from putting circular pintucks on a fluid, silk jersey A-line dress to attaching caviar beading on a slip dress, is done by hand.

Rucci's couture is sometimes criticized for being too complex to wear for anything but special occasions.

The front rows of his shows are filled, not with Hollywood celebrities, but with people recognizable only if you read Town & Country's society pages religiously. The paparazzi don't click, click, click.

But even those in rarefied air are sensitive to being ignored. In August, Rucci sent a letter to the American press announcing that he would not show his ready-to-wear collection in New York.

"I have been showing formally since 1981 and have reached a plateau in my life where the approval and acceptance of certain other journalists is no longer necessary nor complimentary of my work," he wrote.

"There is a great body of American press who have not only never attended my presentations, but even lack the manners to respond. So be it. I must work, and hopefully my work speaks for itself."

Rucci doesn't like to talk about himself, choosing to answer questions with questions.

He can be extremely humble; he doesn't send models down the runway at the end of his show - "it's too egotistical." But he also is uncompromising about his work and about what he thinks is acceptable.

He does not lend his clothing to celebrities, which is why his dresses aren't at Oscar galas. Lending the clothes, he says, would cheapen the garments to his customers willing to pay full price. Singular Rucci pieces retail for anywhere from $2,000 for a pair of pants to $100,000 for a couture dress.

"You can pull out a Ralph Rucci from 10 years ago and it is still fresh and wonderful and you look great in it," said Main Line businesswoman Noelle Wein.

"He is a wonderful throwback to how great clothes used to be made."

Rucci's design studio in the heart of SoHo is right next to Levi's, his favorite denim store.

It is here where his sister Rosina, his longtime business partner Van Natta, and more than 50 workers create his couture vision.

Leather is braided for the trim on cashmere pants and skirts. Chiffon is frayed. More leather is woven to create tight bodices on dresses. Cashmere is perforated.

Less than a week before the Paris shows, Rucci was still designing to the specs of model Coco Mitchell, who is somewhere between sizes 4 and 6.

Rucci will stay in Paris through the end of this week to see several representatives of international department stores. Like many designers, he is hoping his Paris showing boosts his reputation worldwide.

Moments before the show, Rucci, in a white shirt with his initials embroidered in the collar in red, seems calm. He does a couple of interviews with international style channels.

"I'm looking for a new vocabulary to present clothes," he says. "I'm always reaching and growing. I have to if I want to continue to participate in this business."

View additional photos of Ralph Rucci in his Manhattan studio and of his designs on the Paris runway at http://go.philly.com/rucci.EndText