rag & bone

Founded in 2002, rag & bone had one very clear vision in mind: to make clothes that they and their friends would love to wear every day.
With no formal fashion training, Marcus Wainwright & David Neville set about learning how to make jeans.
They believed that denim represented the history, authenticity and fundamentals of classic work wear that they would strive to reflect in their designs.
Beginning in Kentucky, rag & bone surrounded themselves with people who had been making patterns, cutting fabric and sewing their whole lives.
Working with these kinds of craftsmen taught them the importance of quality, craftsman-ship and attention to detail early on.
These principles soon became the keystones of the rag & bone philosophy, the definition of what clothing can and should be. With these principles in mind, whenever possible rag & bone produces the majority of their garments in U.S. factories that still sew clothes the same way they did 50 years ago.
rag & bone launched their men's line in Spring 2004 and expanded the label to offer a full women's collection by Fall 2005.
The Fall Winter 2007 season marked the introduction of rag & bone accessories for both men and women, adding a touch of style and distinction to their tailored looks.
Guided by a strong British tailoring influence, rag & bone produces classic yet modern sportswear for men and women that is rag & bone launched their men's line in Spring 2004 and expanded the label to offer a full women's collection by Fall 2005.
The Fall Winter 2007 season marked the introd-uction of rag & bone accessories for both men and women, adding a touch of style and distinction to their tailored looks. Guided by a strong British tailoring influence, rag & bone produces classic yet modern sportswear for men and women that is known for being understated and wearable.
Each piece, whether it be a tailored shirt or a pair of jeans, is framedby the constants of high quality fabric, classic construction and perfect fit with a handmade feel. Each season the designers seek out both innovative and classic fabrics, which, when blended together, give rag & bone a modern relevance while retaining a timeless feel.
Accordingly, the designers also employ a variety of traditional manufacturers and suppliers, who lend their superb workmanship and time-honored techniques to the collect-ion, such as Martin Greenfield Tailors of Brooklyn, Norton & Sons of Savile Row and Waterbury Button, the oldest button manufacturer in the US. In 2006, rag & bone was selected as a finalist for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award and won the 2007 Swarovski Award for emerging talent in menswear, after also being nominated for that same award in 2006.
In 2010, David Neville and Marcus Wainwright were named Menswear Designers of the Year by the CFDA. rag & bone is a lifestyle brand, offering men's, women's, footwear and accessories collections which are available at high end boutiques and exclusive department stores worldwide rag & bone also operates four flagship stores, men's and women's, on Christopher Street in NYC's West Village, as well as a SoHo shop at 119 Mercer Street.

Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in The Bronx to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants from Belarus: Fraydl (Kotlar) and Frank Lifshitz, a house painter.From a young age he started working after school to earn money to buy suits.
A four-year younger Calvin Klein, lived in the same Bronx neighborhood but it is not known if they ever met while living there.
Lauren attended the Salanter Academy Jewish Day School followed by MTA (now known as the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy), before eventually graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1957.
In MTA Lauren was known by his classmates for selling ties to his fellow students. In his Clinton yearbook he stated under his picture that he wanted to be a millionaire.
Other notables who attended this school include Burt Lancaster, Robert Klein, and Stan Lee. At age 16, Ralph's brother Jerry changed their last name from Lifshitz to Lauren (his brother Lenny retained the name Lifshitz for many years). During the summers, Lauren attended Camp Roosevelt (Monticello).
He went to the Baruch School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York (now known as Baruch College) where he studied business, although he dropped out after two years. From 1962 to 1964 he served in the United States Army. After his discharge in 1968, he married Ricky Low-Beer. He did not attend fashion school, but worked for Brooks Brothers as a salesman. In 1967, with the financial backing of Norman Hilton, Lauren opened a necktie store where he also sold ties of his own design, under the label "Polo".
He later purchased the name from Hilton.

In 1970 Ralph Lauren won the City Award for his menswear line created exclusively for teen heartthrob Andrew McLean.
Around that same time he released a line of women's suit that were tailored in a classic men's style, which was when the first Polo emblem was seen.
It was on the cuff of the women's suit. Ralph Lauren released Polo's famous short sleeve mesh shirt with the Polo logo in 1972.
It came out in 24 colors and soon became a classic.
He also gained recognition for his design after he was contracted to provide clothing styles for the movie The Great Gatsby.
In 1984 he transformed the Rhinelander Mansion, former home of the photographer Edgar de Evia and Robert Denning, into the flagship store for Polo Ralph Lauren. This same year de Evia photographed the cover feature story for House & Garden on the Lauren home Round Hill in Jamaica, which had formerly been the home of Babe and Bill Paley.
On June 11, 1997, Polo Ralph Lauren became a public company, traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RL. By 2007 Ralph Lauren had over 35 boutiques in United States.

There were 23 locations that carried Ralph Lauren Purple Label, including Atlanta, Beverly Hills, Boston, Charlotte, Wisconsin Avenue, Chicago, Costa Mesa, Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Manhasset, New York, Palm Beach, Palo Alto, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Short Hills, and Troy.
Ralph Lauren website

Ralph Rucci

Ralph Rucci, an Italian-American, was born and raised in Philadelphia, and holds a degree in philosophy from Temple University.
At the age of 21, he moved to New York to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology and later trained under Halston and a Balenciaga patternmaker. He launched Chado Ralph Rucci in 1994, and began showing at New York Fashion Week in 1999.
In 2002, Rucci became the first American designer in more than 60 years to be invited to show in Paris by the French Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, and he showed his haute couture designs in Paris for the next three seasons.
He has twice been nominated for the Council of Fashion Designers of America's Womenswear Designer of the Year Awards. He is also a painter, who has exhibited in several galleries in the US.

Chado Ralph Rucci garments are known for the minute precision of their construction, their sculptural look, and the innovative use of fabrics such as horsehair and organza.
Chado has been championed by New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn, who has written that "Mr. Rucci belongs to the heroic ranks of Balenciaga, Madame Grès and Halston.
"The line is also notable on two levels: for still being entirely manufactured in the United States, unlike most other American fashion brands, and also for the fact that Rucci himself remains the sole designer of the line, unlike nearly all other design houses, which produce designs via "teams." Andre Leon Talley, editor-at-large of Vogue, commented that "In his passion for 'old school ideals',Rucci refuses to compromise" and Glenda Bailey, editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar, one of Rucci's biggest supporters, called him a "virtuoso." Rucci's named influences include the painters Cy Twombly and Francis Bacon, sculptor Louise Nevelson, Japanese symbolism, and the designer James Galanos.
Rucci's comment on his own line is "I am attempting to dress individuals who know that clothes are merely an outward expression of the inner self, just another language we use to help communicate the structures and contents of our minds." The line is sold at Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and Saks Fifth Avenue in the United States, and in Russia and Korea. He also creates sewing patterns for Vogue Patterns.

Chado Ralph Rucci has been the subject of numerous museum retrospectives, including the Costume Institute of the Kent State University Museum in 2005
The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2007 and the Phoenix Art Museum in 2008.
Ralph Rucci received the Artistry of Fashion Award from The Couture Council of The Museum at FIT in 2006, the Fashion Design Award of the National Design Awards Program of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 2008 and the Pratt Institute Icon Award in 2009.
His gowns are also part of the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
In 2007, fashion historian Valerie Steele authored The Art of Weightlessness, a monograph and study of Chado Ralph Rucci.
In 2008, the documentary Ralph Rucci: A Designer and His House, narrated by Chado client Martha Stewart, premiered on the Sundance Channel

Rei Kawakubo

Rei Kawakubo (川久保 玲, Kawakubo Rei, born 1942-10-11 in Tokyo) is a Japanese fashion designer, founder of Comme des Garçons.
Rei Kawakubo is untrained as a fashion designer, but studied fine arts and literature at Tokyo's prestigious Keio University.
After graduation, Rei Kawakubo worked in a textile company and began working as a freelance stylist in 1967.
In 1973, Rei Kawakubo established her own company, Comme des Garçons Co. Ltd in Tokyo and opened up her first boutique in Tokyo in 1975.
Starting out with women's clothes,Rei Kawakubo added a men's line in 1978.
Three years later, she started presenting her fashion lines in Paris each season, opening up a boutique in Paris in 1982.
Comme des Garçons specialises in anti-fashion, austere, sometimes deconstructed garments. During the 1980s, her garments were primarily in black, dark grey or white.
The materials were often draped around the body and featured frayed, unfinished edges along with holes and a general asymmetrical shape.
Challenging the established notions of beauty she created an uproar at her debut Paris fashion show where journalists labeled her clothes 'Hiroshima chic' amongst other things.
Since the late 1980s her colour palette has grown somewhat. Rei likes to have input in all the various aspects of her business, rather than just focussing on clothes and accessories.
She is greatly involved in graphic design, advertising and shop interiors believing that all these things are a part of one vision and are inextricably linked.
Her Aoyama, Tokyo store is known for its sloping glass facade decorated with blue dots.
This was designed in collaboration between Rei and architect Future Systems and interior designer Takao Kawasaki.
Rei published her own bi-annual magazine, 'Six' (standing for 'sixth sense'), in the early 1990s.
It featured very little text and consisted mainly for photographs and images that she deemed inspiring.
In 1996 Rei was guest editor of the high art publication Visionaire. Rei is known to be quite reclusive and media shy, preferring her innovative creations to speak for themselves. Her designs have inspired many other late designers like the Belgian Martin Margiela and Ann Demeulemeester, as well as Austrian designer Helmut Lang. Junya Watanabe, Kawakubo's former apprentice, started his own line in the early 1990s and has attained much attention in the fashion business in his own right.
Rei Kawakubo is a member of the Chambre Syndicale du Pret-a-Porter.
Rei Kawakubo created the 2008 autumn "guest designer" collection at H&M, designing men's and women's clothing along with some children's and a unisex perfume.

Rifat Ozbek

Rifat Ozbek Turkish: Rıfat Özbek (born 1953) is a Turkish-born fashion designer, known for his exotic, ethnically-inspired outfits. Born in Istanbul in 1953, Özbek moved to Great Britain in 1970 in order to study architecture, and while there discovered his interest in fashion design. In 1976 he graduated with honours from St Martin's School of Art in London. He set up his own company in 1984. He has also designed for the seminal 1970s designer Walter Albini and for the chain store Monsoon. His work has been featured in Cornucopia, issue 6.

His flair and style were soon acknowledged by the press and the most important international fashion retailers. Today his collections have gained worldwide approval and he has acquired a distinguished and celebrated following.

Mysterious and reserved, Rifat Ozbek is highly protective of his privacy. His rapid rise to fame has produced a popularity from which he shrinks, preferring a simple lifestyle which is highly unusual in the glamorous world of fashion design.

R Scott French

In early 1999, co-founder and designer of the French Jenny lingerie collection, Fashion Designer Scott French sold his stake in the multi-million dollar company to pursue his dream of designing menswear. R. Scott French is a contemporary designer collection of both men’s and women’s sportswear. The collection strikes a balance between item driven diversity and the cohesive development of a designer look with European influences combined with a clean American sensibility. R. Scott French targets the fashion aware, but not the fashion consumed. His customer reads “Harper’s” & “Vogue” & “L’Uomo Vogue” to monitor the zeitgeist, but reads “Lucky” & “Details” to decide what to buy.

A native of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, French was first introduced to sewing by his grandmother who would regularly include him in her quilting circles. Not only did he quickly become adept with a needle and thread, but he immediately realized that this newfound hobby served as a creative outlet as well. To this day, French credits that experience with having shaped his acute understanding of the geometry of design, and instilled in him a deep appreciation of an American art form, as evidenced in his sleek & linear sportswear designs.
R. Scott French website