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Forward March

It was the news of the week. In his highly anticipated debut for Balenciaga,

Demna Gvasalia opened a new chapter in the life of the storied house. With a

collection that fused couture chic with street smarts, he sought to replicate

movement through cut, as seen here in this forward-projecting skirt.

For more from Paris, see pages 5 to 10.

Fashion. Beauty. Business.

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2016

7 MARCH 2016

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT PAMELA FIRESTONE, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER AT 212 256 8103 OR PFIRESTONE@WWD.COM

Issue: April 20 Ad Close: April 6

Materials: April 18

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● A pop-up shop for the brand will occur at the retailer’s flagship on 59th Street in April.

BY VICKI M. YOUNG

The Bill Blass brand is slowly pedaling back into the brick-and-mortar channel.

The brand will be an exclusive at Bloomingdale’s this spring, showing its apparel, handbag and footwear line, accord-ing to Stuart Goldblatt, president and chief operating officer of the Bill Blass Group LLC.

Plans are still being finalized but are expected to include a Bill Blass pop-up shop in Bloomingdale’s in April at select locations including the flagship at 59th Street in Man-hattan, and then have the products in their respective category locations, also at select stores. The product also will be available on the Blass e-commerce site. There are about 200 stockkeeping units total.

The Blass brand was pulled off the market in 2012 when the company decided to shut-ter its the designer and couture business. After that, the company elected to let its licenses expire before determining how to bring the brand back to market. Goldblatt

said a consumer insight study surveying more than 3,000 individuals indicated “tremendous recognition of the name.” The company decided that repositioning the brand in the contemporary space was where it had the best opportunity.

Marketing and design of the Blass brand are now under the direction of creative director Chris Benz. The design group has five full-timers on staff.

Apparel price points range from $48 for a tank top to $1,900 for a sequined dress, while footwear ranges from $250 to $300 a pair. “The core of the business — handbags — average $400, but can range from $350 to $800,” Goldblatt said.

Although just women’s wear for now, Goldblatt said there are plans to include men’s and home down the road.

The brand was relaunched in November on the company’s Web site as an e-commerce business. It is also on two other affiliate market-ing online sites — Orchard Mile and Spring — and, from the end of April, will be on Lyst.

Goldblatt has big plans for the

brand. A key area of focus is opening flagships globally. The first one is planned for 2017 in New York. That is likely to be followed by one in Los Angeles, and then others in Hong Kong and Seoul, South Korea. Goldblatt said the overseas interest has been primarily from Asia.

The Blass brand in its heyday was about a $750 million business, but it has had numerous ups and downs since Blass retired in 1999. He died in 2002. The current look of the brand under Benz’s direction has emphasized color, embellish-

ments and prints.Peter and Cin Kim acquired the

brand for $10 million in December 2008 from NexCen Brands Inc. Own-ership initially was under the holding company Peacock International. The assets were soon placed into a new holding company, Bill Blass

Group. Peacock Apparel, a separate business, is still in operation. When NexCen acquired the brand for cash and stock in December 2006, it paid $54.6 million. That number got upped by another $425,000 plus $950,000 in loan forgiveness when

Bill Blass Couture, the ready-to-wear unit, was acquired.

THE MARKETS

Bill Blass Heading to Bloomingdale’s

● The presidential hopeful was forced to defend why a portion of his signature collection is made in Mexico and China and not in the U.S.

BY KRISTI ELLIS

Now it’s Donald Trump’s suits and ties that are under fire. Not those the Republi-can presidential candidate wears — they’re presumably bespoke — but instead the ones that are part of the Donald J. Trump

Collection that was once sold at Macy’s and other retailers before they dropped the line over Trump’s incendiary com-ments on immigration.

In the down-and-dirty Republican presidential debate Thursday night

in Detroit, Trump came under fire for at least a portion of his signature suit and tie collection reportedly being made in Mex-ico and China as the discussion over Made in America versus sourcing overseas was addressed.

Trump, who is leading the race for the GOP nomination, has repeatedly blamed Mexico and China on the campaign trail for stealing U.S. jobs and creating a trade deficit with the U.S. He has also said he will slap tariffs on all imports from China if he is elected.

Some — and possibly all — of his signa-ture Donald J. Trump Collection is made in Mexico and China by licensees, a point that presidential challenger Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) raised at the debate.

Trump went on the trade warpath out of the gate, accusing China, Mexico and Japan of beating the U.S. on trade. “Trade is killing our country,” he said. “And every

other country we do business with, we are getting absolutely crushed on trade. Every country we lose money with. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve got to reduce…we have to redo our trade deals 100 percent. I have the greatest business people in the world lined up to do it. We will make…great trade deals.”

But Rubio, who is battling to stay in the race, called out Trump and pointed to the inconsistency in his rhetoric. He also proudly declared that all of his campaign merchandise for sale on his Web site is Made in America.

“He has spent a career of convincing Americans that he’s something that he’s not in exchange for their money,” Rubio charged. “Now he’s trying to do the same in exchange for their country. This is a fact. He talks about these great businesses that he’s built….He can start tonight by announcing that all the Donald Trump clothing will no longer be made in China and in Mexico but will be made here in the United States.”

Trump has lost at least one licensing deal and a contract with Macy’s Inc., which stopped carrying his signature collection over his inflammatory remarks about Mexican immigrants on the cam-paign trail. The bad blood between Trump and Macy’s dates back to July when the retailer decided to stop carrying Trump’s merchandise, including his branded men’s wear and fragrance products.

PVH Corp., which signed a licensing deal in 2004 to make shirts and neckwear for the Trump brand, also said in July that it planned to stop making these products.

At Thursday’s debate, Fox News Chan-nel anchor Chris Wallace pressed Trump on the issue of outsourcing, asking if he would pledge to move the production of his clothing collection back to the U.S.

“I will do that,” Trump said. “By the way,

I’ve been doing it more and more.”He went on to argue that China, Mexico

and Japan undervalue their currencies, putting U.S. manufacturers at a compet-itive disadvantage because the cost of imports falls as a result.

“If you look at what’s happened on Seventh Avenue, and you look at what’s hap-pened in New York with the garment indus-try, so much of the clothing now comes out from Vietnam, China and other places,” he said. “And it’s all because of devaluation.”

Rubio wasn’t buying the arguments. He said, “The reason why he makes it in China or Mexico is because he can make more money on it. That’s why he’s doing it.”

The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.

Championing American-made products is one thing but the number of compa-nies actually producing those products in the U.S. is still small compared with the amount of clothing that U.S. brands and retailers source overseas and import back to the U.S. to sell. Still, the Made in America movement has gained steam in the last few years.

U.S. brands and retailers have been producing their clothing in other coun-tries for decades. The U.S. has a large global trade deficit, which widened to $539.7 billion on a seasonally adjusted basis in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2015 was $338 billion, while the deficit with Mexico was $57.3 billion and the deficit with Japan was $56.7 billion.

China controls the lion’s share of the U.S. apparel and textiles import market. In the latest data released by the Com-merce Department on Friday, combined imports from China rose 9.8 percent to 2.5 billion square meter equivalents. Imports from Vietnam, the third largest supplier of textiles and apparel to the U.S., rose 6.3 percent to 362 million SME, while imports from Mexico fell 7.8 per-cent to 170 million SME.

The Obama administration said in its trade report last week that Made in America is making a comeback, citing an increase in export-related jobs in the U.S. The U.S. has added more than 900,000 manufacturing jobs since rebounding in early 2010, the report said.

BUSINESS

Donald Trump’s Latest Controversy: Where His Suit Collection Is Made

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A Bill Blass style for Bloomingdale’s.

Donald Trump

7 MARCH 2016 3

4 7 MARCH 2016

● The building comprises Fendi’s largest flagship, seven suites, a private apartment and a Zuma restaurant.

BY LUISA ZARGANI

Palazzo Fendi was conceived to be “a must-see in Rome.”

Pietro Beccari, the brand’s president and chief executive officer, speaks enthusiasti-cally of the newly refurbished building in the Italian capital, which will be officially inaugurated with an event on March 10. “It’s expected to leave a long-lasting impression and further raise one’s perception of Fendi,” Beccari told WWD.

Palazzo Fendi, the brand’s biggest flagship in the world, includes a fur atelier; the company’s first boutique hotel, the Fendi Private Suites, and Palazzo Privé, an apartment designed by Dimore Studio, as well as a Zuma restaurant. “We completely overhauled the interiors of the building, but it only took nine months for the works, with four architects and six companies of builders,” said Beccari, who masterminded the project of moving crammed Fendi employees from the former offices there to the new headquarters in the Palazzo della CiviltàItaliana last year.

The company has occupied Palazzo Fendi, which is on Largo Carlo Goldoni, located in front of luxury shopping street Via Condotti and the Spanish Steps, since 2004 for retail and office purposes. The building was originally a residence of the Boncom-pagni-Ludovisi family, one of Rome’s most aristocratic lines that boasts Pope Gregory XIII among its ancestors. The flagship in the five-story, 17th-century building covers almost 10,800 square feet, and is an evolution of Fendi’s Paris and Milan stores by architect Gwenael Nicolas, with an area dedicated to Fendi’s in-house fur atelier, for special made-to-order pieces, with seven artisans at work.

The hotel concept is by architect Marco

Costanzi, who also conceived Fendi’s headquarters in Rome’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana and its Milan showroom. The Palazzo Privé, which covers 1,080 square feet, includes a kitchenette and is a private location for VIPs, celebrities, and “special friends of the house,” said Beccari. It is deco-rated with art by Agostino Bonalumi and Lucio Fontana from the Galleria Mazzoleni.

The hotel has seven rooms, but Beccari is cautious about rolling it out elsewhere. “Let’s see how it goes. This is not about the business, it’s about a lifestyle concept and offering a service to our customers,” he explained. For example, the seven rooms can be booked together for 17,000 euros, or $18,460 at current exchange. Guests have a table reserved at Zuma.

The Japanese restaurant Zuma, cofounded by Rainer Becker, is on the top floor and roof bar. Zuma at Palazzo Fendi was designed by Noriyoshi Muramatsu of Tokyo-based Studio Glitt, who has worked alongside Becker realizing his vision of Zuma since it opened in 2002.

A lepanto red marble staircase is a striking fixture at the entrance of the store. Beccari

said that 10 different marbles were used, from marmorino to travertine.

In addition to Fendi Casa furniture, the Palazzo is peppered with standout design pieces: A vertical light, by Dimore Studio, in the foyer ceiling; a conversation armchair in briarwood, oxidized brass, crocodile leather and velvet in the foyer; wall lamps by Hans-Agne Jakobsson; a GioPontiDaybed from Apta Series; a portoro marble console by Oeuffice in the foyer; a Venini chandelier; Marco Zanuso for Arflex armchairs, and a chinoiserie French cupboard supplied by Dimore Gallery from the year 1800 in the fitting room.

The boutique carries the entire women’s and men’s collections. Men’s wear, noted Beccari, has more than doubled sales in the last two years.

Beccari is especially proud of the fur atelier. “It’s a revolutionary idea — a working atelier in the store. We want to convey the idea that it’s cool to become an artisan, or a tailor. In food, it’s special to be invited to eat in the kitchen and see the chef up close. Likewise, it’s a unique experience to see artisans at work.”

Beccari revealed that Fendi has created a tailoring academy in Casperia, a small village outside Rome, with a historical tailor, Maria Antonietta Massoli, and her family, restructuring the historical Palazzo Locatelli that houses the students and purchasing machines and tools. “We’ve received more than 200 requests from all of Italy, and selected nine [for the first group].” After six months of training and a diploma, Fendi or Massoli provide an internship.

Although Beccari is mum on the amount, Palazzo Fendi is yet another major invest-ment for the company, after the restoration of the Palazzo della Civiltà, which includes an open exhibition space on the ground floor, and of several historic fountains in Rome, including the Trevi Fountain. “It’s all good for the city,” he said simply. “I am proud to say that 33,000 visitors came to see the Palazzo della Civiltà since October. More projects are in the pipeline.”

BUSINESS

Palazzo Fendi to Be Officially Unveiled at March 10 Event

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● Hedges seeks $500,000 plus fees and damages.

BY JULIE NAUGHTON

James Hedges, formerly chief executive officer of John Barrett Holdings LLC, filed a demand for arbitration with the American Arbitration Association Friday.

Hedges, who was fired by John Barrett on Feb. 9 in a manner that Hedges told WWD had a “public lynching mentality,” saying that 30 to 40 other people were present when Barrett allegedly told Hedges “I am terminating you for cause, suspected of fraud.” Hedges states $500,000 as the amount of the claim in the filing, and also seeks attorneys’ fees, interest, arbitration costs, punitive/exemplary relief and liqui-dated damages from Barrett, et al.

Hedges’ contract, signed Jan. 1, 2015, “irrevocably and unconditionally” waived the right to a trial by jury “in respect of any litigation directly or indirectly arising out of or relating to” Hedges’ contract.

Hedges’ lawyer, Gabriel Levinson of Tarter Krinsky & Drogin LLP, served Barrett

personally, John Barrett Holdings LLC and John Barrett Salon with a letter advising of Hedges’ plans to file for arbitration and demanding a retraction of the “fraud” allegations and stating that Barrett and his employees and/or representatives “retained and converted Mr. Hedges’ personal property without justification…employee(s) and/or representative(s) of JBH or the Salon wrongfully accessed, downloaded, and/or transferred the confidential and proprietary information of Mr. Hedges and Hedges Proj-ects LLC, without authorization, failed to return such information, and that they may have destroyed or deleted the computer files of Mr. Hedges and Hedges Projects.”

“On Feb. 9, 2016, you wrongfully terminated Mr. Hedges and accused him of ‘fraud’ without specifying the acts,” Levinson’s letter read. “Your false accusation in front of over 25 people was intended to expose Mr. Hedges to public contempt and ridicule, and injure his professional reputation.”

The filed arbitration agreement asserted slander, defamation per se, breach of contract (amended and restated executive

agreement), conversion and misappropria-tion, violation of wage and hour laws, and violation of 29 U.S.C. 1140 and ERISA 510 (interference with protected rights claims against Barrett, et al.)

It’s an ugly finish to a bold vision for reshaping the concept of a luxury salon and launching an expansion plan, includ-ing opening 15 Saks Fifth Avenue salons by the end of 2017 and 25 free-standing units within five years (one of the new salons, in the Saks store in Boca Raton, Fla., has been closed, as has the salon on Bond Street.)

Hedges, a minority investor in Barrett’s business, had been searching for additional capital to turn it into a global luxury brand. Via spokeswoman Rachel Whitmore on Feb. 10, Barrett stated, “The funding for the expansion did not materialize as promised. As John has had a thriving salon business at Bergdorf Goodman for 20 years, he was confident it was in the best interest of the business for him to take back control to ensure future growth and success.”

The company had said that it would open a new 16,000-square-foot flagship this year at 10 East 56th Street, once the home of Elizabeth Taylor.

Hedges had also leased a 3,600-square-foot space at the Westfield World Trade Center shopping area for yet another salon, slated to open in June. The fate of these two projects has not been revealed.

BEAUTY

James Hedges Files Arbitration Demand Against John Barrett

The interior of Palazzo Fendi in Rome.

● With the launch of Angel Muse in mid-March, perfumes will sport the Mugler moniker.

BY JENNIFER WEIL

It’s all for one at Mugler — one name and one logo, that is, for its fragrance and fashion businesses.

Beginning with the launch of its newest women’s scent Angel Muse in mid-March, all fragrance products will fall under the Mugler banner, in sync with the fashion branding introduced a decade ago.

“We want to protect the [label] as an institutional brand, as a brand for the future,” Sandrine Groslier, president of Clarins Fra-grance Group and Mugler Mode, told WWD. “It was really the moment after 25 years on the market — to become a clearly interna-tional brand that’s easy to read everywhere in the world and also to make people under-stand that the [label] has changed.”

David Koma is now behind the fashion, while the founder conceived the new logo and is still very much involved in perfume development.

The logo is “his pure creation,” explained Groslier, who noted Mugler sat down with a pencil and paper to sketch the brand name by hand in capital letters that are meant to trans-mit energy, audacity and modernity while still staying true to the brand’s DNA — albeit maybe with a less aggressive bent. The letters M, G and R specifically appear to be man-made, with slightly asymmetric touches.

Groslier, who took the reins of the brand in 2013, said the goal is to broaden its appeal. “We need to open the vision we have of the Mugler brand. We want to open to new people, to new countries. We clearly want to make the brand bigger.”

The development echoes moves at other European heritage labels — Dior, Maison Mar-giela and Saint Laurent, for example — which have truncated the founder’s name in a quest for better branding.

“We are very proud to take a new historical step,” said Virginie Courtin-Clarins, director of development, marketing and communica-tions at Mugler Fashion.

The Thierry Mugler fragrance logo has gone through numerous iterations over the years. It has always been the designer’s signature, but in 2004 became more stream-lined. “Rebranding a fragrance brand takes more time than a fashion brand,” explained Courtin-Clarins. “On the fashion side we have a new collection every three months, so we have the ability to reinvent ourselves more often.” On the fragrance side, we take years to launch a new product, so every move you make has to be more carefully thought-out.”

Angel Muse, part of the blockbuster Angel franchise, has an advertising campaign fronted by Georgia May Jagger. Its juice is a woody gourmand.

“We have reinvented the [gourmand] family,” said Groslier. “But we’re keeping the spirit of Angel. This a very important step for us — this project will be the first to project this new vision. It is to project the brand and to project Angel into the coming decade.”

FASHION

Mugler Creates One Name, One Logo for Fashion And Fragrance

The new Mugler logo.

7 MARCH 2016 5

BalenciagaA promising debut, but hold the canonization.

Demna Gvasalia is one of the hottest names in fashion right now, not to mention its biggest curiosity. Only a year ago he erupted from obscurity with the ubercool phenomenon that is Vetements, seizing the creative reins at one of the most hallowed names in fashion. His Balenciaga debut on Sunday ushered in the next chapter in the life of the house. Along the way, Gvasalia proved himself unintimidated by the major stage, as he brought to the collection both historical curiosity and a strong sense of self. The result was an interesting, often chic fusion of couture and (the designer’s denials aside) street references.

Upon his arrival at Balenciaga, Gvasalia said during a preview: “My first priority was to understand the methodology of Cristóbal, his work around the body, and how to do it today, in 2016.” He studied photos of Fifties couture and how the haute models of the day posed, with rounded shoulders, their abdomens con-cave, “a C-curve.” He sought to replicate that sense of forward movement through cut rather than body language. At the same time, he held fast to his Vetements approach. “I start the season with a list of clothing: double-faced clothes, tailored jackets, three-quarter-length skirts, etc.,” he said, now determined to “put those garments in a Balenciaga context.”

Gvasalia did so beautifully with coats and skirts cut to move forward with a woman’s gait; they projected haute refine-ment while looking fresh and genuinely new. Less successful: the padded hip. Whatever its allure for designers, it’s just not going to happen at retail. Gvasalia gave it a twist, literally, moving it inward toward the front of the torso in pursuit of that archival couture silhouette. Along the way, he provided an answer to one of fashion’s most burning questions: “Honey, does this make me look fat?” “Yes, dear, both coming and going.”

Conversely, the models looked great in other extreme silhouettes: enormous, intricately crafted multiprint collage dresses and power-woman parkas. Cut to fall off the shoulder and move forward at the hem, these paired with stirrup pants and stilettos encrusted with major crystal work. While the latter were meant to recall opera coats of yore, and did, to a degree, they also spoke to Gvasalia’s love of the essentials of street dressing.

What can’t be said of this collection: where it’s going. The problem with the currently au courant “wardrobe” approach to the runway is that it offers many options and often little vision. It’s fine for Miuccia Prada to design for, as she said, “different characteristic moments” in a woman’s life; she’s Prada, and it rocked. Gvasalia rooted his premise for Balenciaga in cut and con-struction, so there was a definite thought process in the works. But the result was too broad a swing, from good-side-of-the-Eighties racy to — what’s a nicer word for frump-ola? A designer runway collection that tries to speak to everyone runs the risk of not being heard in all the fashion noise. — Bridget FoleyPh

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DiorRaf Simons has left the building and there’s a collection to be done. What to do? Start with — surprise! — the B’s: basic black and a Bar jacket. That was the approach taken by studio directors Serge Ruffieux and Lucie Meier for their Dior show on Friday. The result was a lineup of attractive, often alluring clothes. The kind of clothes that, at another moment, might have comprised the commercial counterpart to a more experimental runway show.

Meier and Ruffieux did a good job. They worked with a lean silhouette, sensual but not vulgar. Their emphasis on black began with sturdy fabrics and featured well-placed details — a wide, self-fabric X buttoned onto a short coat; a V-shaped ruffle front of a knit top-and skirt look.

The designers integrated color and

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A variety of glossy textures — some bringing to mind the romantic, rain-slicked streets of Paris — paraded by on a plush gray carpet: narrow midi skirts in micro sequins; body-caressing dresses in panne velvets; iridescent organza T-shirts shelter-ing bra tops; loose trenchcoats in ponys-kin, or taut ones in eel.

The sepia colors — along with com-binations like lilac with Army green, or lapis lazuli with brown — were unusual and retro-tinged. There was also an old Hollywood quality to his big loden officer coat with a matching marabou boa; the secretary sweater with rows of sequins winking out from channels of mohair, and the slipdresses melding delicate lace and glossy silks. Boxy coats patching together fox fur and goat hair, dyed dark green or purple, were particularly striking.

Given his penchant for building a narra-tive with clothing, add Henry to the list of fashion designers most likely to costume a movie someday. But he’s adamant that’s not his intention. “At the end of the day, it’s not my story anymore. It’s about great clothes that hopefully people will want to wear.” And, hopefully, not only for nerve-wracking dates. — Miles Socha

considerable decorative flourish, always controlled and usually in the manner of Simons, whose major contribution at Dior was the imposition of his modernist aesthetic on the house codes. This fusion continued in the way a fluid printed dress or camel cashmere coat draped at the neck, in fabric mixes does — a hint of print from under a short, side-slit skirt, and some bold, unfussy embroideries. Evening offered some lovely looks that bared one or both shoulders with a hint of exotica.

Yet Meier and Ruffieux were trapped by their interim status. The biggest, flashiest, most disori-enting mirrored venue facade imaginable couldn’t disguise the fact that this collection was more placeholder than manifestation of creative vision. We now know these designers can make a pretty dress and smart coat in the manner of the last creative leader of the great house of Dior, and that come fall, the brand’s clients will find plenty of smart, wearable clothes to buy. We don’t know who Ruffieux and Meier are as designers independent of the shadow cast by Simons, or if in fact they have such a shared vision. It was neither their mandate nor Dior’s interest for them to showcase their own vision for the house. Whether fair or not is beside the point. It’s the reality of fashion today. — Bridget Foley

CélineBackstage after Phoebe Philo’s fall Céline show, a group of journalists sur-rounded her, desperate to be told what the collection was about. They should’ve already known from the runway that it was a study in beautiful clothes. Clothes to live in, clothes to move in, clothes that signal to the world a highly evolved taste level, and allow fashion indulgence without frivolity. It was a great collection, if not the revelation Philo fans anticipate.

Her words were abstract. “It’s about finding the possibilities. Curiosity. Going in there and trying to find it,” she said. “Find the stillness sometimes in it.” It was mellow. Big, buttoned-up shirts with exaggerated, undone cuffs were worn over wide pants cut to move with you. They came in shades of yellow, white and ivory and were worn with flat minimalist gladi-ators. Nothing was restricting. Sometimes Philo cocooned the body with a nubby top of curved, engulfing Japanese proportions, shapes and outerwear with big, cape-ish flaps that fell down the shoulders and had drawstring bottoms. Other times she flirted with feminine shapes, with twisted, clingy jersey tunics and an hourglass T-shirt. There were dresses embroidered with organic link shapes, shiny silk dresses that were ruched and knotted, and a min-eral blue leather trench offered one of the few instances of strong color.

Pressed about what “it” she went in search of, Philo said she meant “the process.” She touches and feels her way through a collection, sometimes not know-ing what will surface until it’s nearly show-time. This time, the yield was quiet. She found a moment of stillness, but processes are ongoing. Next season awaits. — Jessica Iredale

Nina Ricci Mood boards rarely translate as evoca-tively into a fashion show as Guillaume Henry’s Nina Ricci effort on

Saturday night.He can’t get enough of “crazy beau-

tiful” Romy Schneider, who stared out from among images of her fingers gripped tightly on a steering wheel, and sweat staining the underarms of a tight white blouse. He imagined a “femme amou-reuse” — a woman in love, in English — dressing up for a date, her emotions a cocktail of passion and anxiety.

This was a subtle collection, but with a sexual pulse and an emotional tug — a step forward for Henry, now getting into the groove after three seasons at the house.

Nina Ricci

Céline

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Comme des Garçons“Where have all the flowers gone?” lamented Peter, Paul and Mary many years ago. Stockpiled by Rei Kawakubo. She hoarded them to unleash in a Comme des Garçons collection that delivered giddy fancy and intrepid invention in a season previously lean on audacity.

Kawakubo is such an industry goddess that one aspect of her work gets short-shrift — the fun one. It’s OK for us to find amusement, joy even, in her deep thoughts. “18th-century punk” came the cerebral one’s terse briefing. What, you thought modern times had a lock on disaffected youth? Disciples of Kawaku-bo’s take on punk worked the mood with a girly side, one expressed in that lavish explosion of flora. But not just any flora. The designer used only haute fabrics from Lyon. (Except, of course, when she used bubble-gum pink vinyl.) She worked the grand fabrics into 17 typically complicated, out-there architectural assemblages, displaying complete lack of restraint with layering on the luxe. Conversely, she crafted each 3-D wonder with utter preci-sion. Equal parts bold creator and exacting technician, Kawakubo places not a single petal, loop, or puffed-out doughnut pillow without careful consideration.

For all the blossoms big, small and ebulliently colorful, a warrior vibe ran throughout the stiffened flaps, bands and panels fastened together in tiers with big, utilitarian snaps. Articulated, armorlike casings looked like Mad Maxine in cru-sader mode. A girl can flash some flowers and attitude, too.

At the same time, she can express her penchant for pretty. Not ordinary, girl-next-door pretty, but pretty of a sort. Thus, the first model out walked with a balleri-na’s gait, feet turned out, and toes pointed, and the soundtrack by Sven Kacirek fea-tured snippets from “The Nutcracker” on what sounded like a xylophone. As for the shoes, not ballet slippers exactly, but close: faux Keds in pink and white, covered with tufts of fake fur. Move over, Balanchine. Kawakubo’s Waltz of the Flowers pirouet-ted with a strange, compelling power. — Bridget Foley

LoeweBeyond putting fractured mirrors on clothes at Loewe, Jonathan Anderson has helped smash the slick standardization that’s infiltrated some of the biggest brands in the luxury sector.

Guests in the Joan Miró rooms at UNE-SCO, with ravishing wall murals by the Spanish master, were seated on Perspex cubes stuffed with pot scrubbers, dispos-able razors or lightbulbs, along with an assortment of skinny benches and con-crete pedestals.

Anderson also likes to put fashion in a context, and the furnishings, artworks and low ceilings suggested an arty Madrid apartment. The offbeat soundtrack was a hypnotist spouting mantras for quitting smoking — as the designer recently did.

“A curated look,” he said backstage. “That’s what we do with our lives.”

There was a hint of Donna Karan in the clinging jersey tops, the scarf-point skirts in stiff knife pleats or bouncy knits — and the demonstrative gold jewelry. Yet Ander-son’s melding of the organic and the flashy is impressive, and this was his most sophis-ticated and polished Loewe collection yet.

While fashion has drifted away from head-to-toe designer looks, here were scores of outfits so chic you would hate to

break them up. Consider a gently flared, padded coat and pants in a matching military green cotton, or caramel-colored leather, the latter accessorized with two matching hobolike handbags. Or a long tweed tube dress coiled with heavy fringe that repeated on the matching Amazona bag.

Anderson has a knack for incorporating hardware into clothing in striking ways. Here he threaded beaded necklaces into the gathered waist and neckline of loose cotton shirtdresses; topped tube dresses with sculpted leather corsets, and made sparkling dress sleeves out of delicate metal rings.

With this collection, Anderson proved that modernism and eccentricity make fine bedfellows. Among his quirky acces-sories was a white cat-shaped minaudière slung from a necklace. You can anticipate the caption on Michel Gaubert’s Instagram feed: “This is not Choupette.” — Miles Socha

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Yohji Yamamoto“Subtraction.” At first, Yohji Yamamoto’s single-word response to the obvious post-show question — “What’s it all about?” — left inquiring minds hanging. Then, after a mental review of the collection, with its lean, gentle cuts and measured approach to patternmaking acrobatics, one realized it was Yamamoto in modern minimalist mode. He didn’t add on without purpose and less was indeed more.

The opening looks were spare but not plain, a series of languid black dresses and coats with narrow plunging V necklines under tailored jackets with sleeves cut to look dropped off the shoulder. Nothing was superfluous, but the look was not as simplistic as basic arithmetic. Yama-moto was making a subtle statement on sexiness.

An undone attitude and a peek of flesh came through by way of a fitted shirt, worn with pants that folded down at the fly, casually buttoned. Small and silver, the buttons recurred on Henley-like shirts and around the hips of black pants in a pattern that evoked sailor uniforms, a reference made clear on jackets with square sailor collars and a group of fantastic knit dresses — black with a raw trail of red stitching, white with a crude black stitching — that were clearly nautically minded. The dresses hinted at the female form without coming close to the body. Asked about the sea-faring motifs, Yamamoto reached for a fetishistic cliché. “The sailor collar is a teenager’s uniform,” he said. “They’re always sexy.”

However that statement sounded, there was nothing “pervy” about the clothes. The opposite. They felt current and, by Yamamoto’s standards, feminine. (He noted backstage that he prefers women in mannish looks.) His sideways approach to subtraction and sensuality was effec-tive and quite blunt in the end. The finale featured black coats with white brush-strokes printed with intriguing phrases that summoned poetic longing, despair and commitment — “Lord, I’m not happy here”; “Stop me before I f--k again”; “I will be back soon.”

“I wanted to create something very sim-ple,” Yamamoto said of the messages. “It came from inside.” — Jessica Iredale

Haider AckermannNo one slips a garment off the shoulder quite like Haider Ackermann, one of fashion’s grand champions of dishabille. He tightened up his act considerably for fall by focusing on neat and strict military tailoring, and pants so tight you couldn’t hide a Tic Tac in them.

The combination was combustible. Con-sider a bustier in Army felt with a taut little matching jacket half-on, half-off, paired with second-skin tuxedo pants with fuchsia satin side stripes and killer pointy boots. The look was as smoldering as Joana Preiss on the throbbing soundtrack, breathlessly naming girls and imploring them to “come to me.”

Backstage, Ackermann insisted his pants were “graceful” rather than sexy. To be sure, he brought something new and sophisticated to the maligned world of cling: adding racy side stripes and sparkly front panels to leather biker leggings. He also employed gleaming brocades that played tricks with the light, somehow deflecting attention from the tightness, yet simultaneously rendering legs even more slender.

Pinned on these shiny appendages, it was easier to appreciate the fine and varied tailoring: long and slender coats

with epaulettes, sculpted peplum jackets, elongated boyfriend blazers and cropped, wedge-shaped tuxedo jackets with strong shoulders.

While Ackermann’s name is often bandied about for any number of French couture houses, here you started to think of the Frenchman as a racier, artier version of Giorgio Armani, given his skill and range with pants and jackets.

Indeed, not everything that stalked his carpeted runway was for the cellulite-free. The designer carried over crushed velvet from his men’s collection, here carving it into loose lounge suits, trim dusters and quilted blousons. The T-shirt gown with a slit carved out on one side, however, called for one very toned gam. — Miles Socha

Junya Watanabe“Hyper Construction Dress” was the sim-ple, accurate description Junya Watanabe provided for his fall collection of brilliant shapes and colors and dazzling pattern work. To the masses, the clothes will appear alien, the show a bunch of wacka-doos wearing giant paper fortune-teller games as dresses and hats. But it was really quite straightforward.

Watanabe’s collection notes, circulated

via e-mail post-show, put the concept plainly: “The geometric shapes are rendered in polyurethane that has been bonded with nylon tricot. It is fabric that is ordinarily reserved for industrial purposes — like lining the interior of a car.” The majority of the looks featured a single statement garment worn over basic skinny black pants and long-sleeve shirts. The show opened with black skirts folded into puckers or a cage of links. Then color came in a red poncholike shirt cut from an accordionlike net. There was a fluorescent pink dress made from stiff square-ish pieces. A moto jacket was piled up with big circular pieces. Some of the garments featured round geometry, others offered the sharp and angular. Likewise the headgear that ranged from a cone mask with a small hole cut over the model’s eye to a Darth Vader-esque helmet to orbs that surrounded the head.

The models came out two at a time at the center of the runway and walked in opposite directions, like particles pinging through space. The soundtrack, which cut bluntly between church organs and intense industrial whirring sounds trig-gered associations — the laws of orthodoxy and the laws of physics — but it was best to take the collection at face value. Enjoy the colors, shapes and sounds. — J.I.

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UndercoverEveryone has his or her own idea of what a perfect day would be. To Jun Takahashi, on a perfect day — the title of his fall collection of wonderful, perfect imperfection — “nothing happens,” he said backstage.

In the zany fairy-tale realm of the show’s grand, graceful beauties, ranging in age from newly post-pubes-cent to silver-haired seniors, on the best day anything can happen. It takes you deep into your own world, where you can live and dress as you please. That could mean donning a thorny crown and a shirt printed with golden hair cascading over a painting. Putting on your high-waisted pants made from a mossy green mate-rial that looked like fake astrakhan, and pinning a gold watch and mini handbag on the pocket. That was the show’s opening look. It set a fantastically strange baseline on which Takahashi built oddball queens of comfort dressed in cocoon layers of deconstructed knits, fuzzy pajamas, ele-gant tailoring, egregiously fake fur coats, and cozy, extralong collegiate knit scarves.

It’s almost impossible to coherently describe everything going on in the clothes. There was trompe l’oeil, classic men’s tailoring, trenchcoats, cardigans, pajama pants, corseted ballgowns, dog prints, a coat with a purple furry collars and green pom-poms. In Takahashi’s words, the collection was “a style of relaxed wear with spices in an Undercover way.” The women he imagined seemed to carry their world with them, whatever made them happy — a handbag that looked like a frilly pillow or a fanny pack shaped like a castle, padded headphones, a mini guitar bag. They looked crazy but stylish, exuding a euphoric calm despite all the bizarre accoutrement (much of which was wearable on a single-item basis).

The refrain of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” hung in the air, “You’re going to reap just what you sow.” Make what you will of it, the collection, the song, the show’s title, life. — Jessica Iredale

John GallianoBill Gaytten’s contrast of embellished military outerwear and feminine, bias-cut dresses was a good fit for John Galliano’s repositioning as a contemporary label. The combination of pretty dresses, sharply tailored jackets and sporty flat sneak-er-booties followed the contemporary crowd-pleasing formula.

Admirals’ jackets came in navy and loden green, some cut tautly Edwardian with polished military decorations or slightly oversize and mannish. Gaytten gussied them up in jacquard and layered them over tie-neck blouses and cropped pants for a modern, tomboy dandy feel. The dresses — delicate slips and Josephine styles — done in Chantilly and guipure lace in shades of white, ice blue and baby pink, offered a sophisticated version of eveningwear romance that feels under-represented in the widely street-driven contemporary sector.

The label also revealed plans to open a new store at 30 Rue des Archives in the Marais designed by architect Franklin Azzi and Atelier Franck Durand, which handled the label’s redesigned logo last year as well as the spring campaign fea-turing Christy Turlington shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.

Meanwhile, the Galliano store at 336 Rue Saint-Honoré is undergoing a redesign to

correspond with the new retail concept developed by Durand. — J.I.

Isabel MarantIsabel Marant’s fashion and life philoso-phy has always been the feel-good, enjoy-life sort. It’s hard to recall a dour moment on her runway and easy to remember things like cloth shopping bags from a few seasons ago printed with a sweet, simple illustration of a circle of people holding hands with speech bubbles that said things like, “Let’s go shopping,” “We need you,” and “Be nice.”

For fall, Marant was particularly in the mood to be nice and happy. “Because of what’s in Paris with the attenuate, every-thing is a bit heavy,” she said backstage. “It reminded me of this time in the mid-Eight-ies when we had a lot of fun.” She was pre-fashion school, in club and flea market mode, going to London to buy creepers and dress up in a mix of rockabilly, punk and New Wave styles. That essentially summed up her fall runway.

If the Eighties were a good time for Marant, fashionwise it can be an era best left in the past. But memory served her well. There were some Flock of Seagulls hair moments, candy apple red patent leather and ruched and poufed party dresses, but Marant mostly chose to revive Eighties elements that play quite mod-ernly today. The lineup was awash with great, oversize mannish coats — a dou-ble-breasted gray plaid style, a multicol-ored chunky tweed, a burgundy blue and gray plaid coat with slit panels. They came over distressed preppy argyle sweaters and marled cable knits worn with wrapped, ruched minis and skinny, cropped pants. Animal prints on a few jackets and strappy pointy-toed flats, as well as black leather added an after-dark music-inspired angle, while frilly blouses pumped up the New Romance of yore. If the total package could trigger amusing nostalgia for those who rocked the look its first time around, it could also easily be disassembled into pieces that were as wearable as they were fun. — J.I.

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Elie SaabThere’s been a noticeable change at Elie Saab the past few seasons. He’s been shifting his attention from the heat-seek-ing uptown lady who loves to dress up to her edgier, free spirit of a younger cousin. For fall, he hammered home the rock ‘n’ roll attitude by hiring the Dan-ish singer MØ to perform at the show, and going full throttle with a collection fit for Coachella — if it were a black-tie affair.

There were black lace mini and maxidresses with blue and red floral embroideries, a witchy lace-up dress with Western buckle belt. Kendall Jenner wore a gown in an abstract cloudy and crimson sky print under a black leather motorcycle jacket. A long, black cutaway jacket with lace trim came over a black Victorian blouse and skinny pants tucked into purple suede boots with black tassel trim.

The look had more oomph than Saab’s classic pretty-lady style. Clearly he’s going with the current tides, which brought him close to the shores of Valentino and Saint Laurent, though he kept the look in his territory with touches of classic Saab polish. — Jessica Iredale

Andreas Kronthaler For Vivienne WestwoodThe spirit of punk was alive and well at the inaugural Andreas Kronthaler for Vivi-enne Westwood show in Paris, though per-haps not in the way the designers intended.

Guests were not allowed into the venue until 15 minutes past the official starting time, as rehearsals were still underway. Front row seats were overallocated, and Suzy Menkes ended up moving to the fourth row to make sure she would get out of the venue in time for the next show.

The collection, titled “Sexercise,” was all over the place. Show notes detailed a series of elaborate explanations for the looks, but they could be loosely summed up as “Buddhist nun meets cross-dressing techno raver.”

The unisex fashions were shown on both women and men. Belgian hunk Arnaud Lemaire walked in a silver loincloth paired with patterned tights and shearling over-the-knee boots, topped with a tartan cape coat. Another male model wore a baby-blue striped Beatles suit with slingback platform heels.

The women’s looks included stretchy knits in spice tones and suits with extrawide shoulders, à la David Byrne in “Stop Making Sense.” Dresses were draped and knotted around the body like religious robes.

It was the first time Kronthaler, West-wood’s longtime design collaborator and husband, had his name on the collection, previously known as Vivienne Westwood Gold Label. “Frightening,” was how he summed up the change, part of an effort to streamline and clarify the label’s branding and product offer.

“I kind of made it a bit more personal,” he said backstage. “Vivienne is always a big campaigner and she always wants to say things, express things, and maybe I want this too, but I gave it this very spiritual look. I thought it was a good look. You can’t have enough of spirituality in this world.”

words — simply red — for the Swiss designer expressed his penchant for minimalism within a very narrow color palette. He also blended in a dazzle of African prints — daz-zle being the collective noun for zebras — those wavy stripes colored red and orange for the press-kit folder, video backdrop and a plethora of tunics, dresses and coats.

The results were mixed, as color and print are highly personal, and Kriemler didn’t hold back, mixing blurred cheetah spots and turtle scales with those zebra motifs. As usual, the shapes were stream-lined and the fabrics sumptuous, from spiky antelope fur for a chic capelet to stretch velvet for tracksuits and tube dresses.

Knitted ponchos and calfskin capes were new turf for Akris, along with boxy messenger bags worn cross-body with thick guitar-case straps.

For those keen on neither animal prints nor fiery colors, Kriemler included a killer black leather jacket with a sash of Masai embellishment. Orange you glad? — Miles Socha

RedemptionRedemption’s creative director Gabriele “Bebe” Moratti applied the attitude of mods and rockers to a label focused on leather, tailoring, embellishment and sustainability. Cue a trip to Andy Warhol’s Factory, with veteran model Pat Cleveland there to close the show.

“Too many times, we use the subcultures to which we belong to create barriers, rather than to appreciate each others’ cultures,” Moratti mused backstage after the show. “The Factory was a very special place where people from different social backgrounds, creeds, races [and] sexual orientations all gelled together in this magic environment completely devoid of intolerance, and that’s the part we wanted to concentrate on.”

Within that framework, Moratti’s eclectic proposition made sense. The opening tailored pieces — like a bias-cut pantsuit in a Prince of Wales check with shiny black buttons — moved on to A-line dresses, one with a snow leopard effect created with embroidered sequins. Then came the hippies, with fur-edged Afghan-style jackets and over-the-knee boots embroidered with bright flowers.

The tuxedo was worked through the collection — as a long black gown open at the back, for example, or a bright red shawl-collar jacket over shiny black pants. Disco fever shimmered throughout, as on a pantsuit with rectangular gems in black and silver forming a diagonal grid pattern, or when sequins formed a Union Jack flag tone-on-tone on a black shift dress.

The glamour quotient reached its height with a long, plunge-necked mesh gown hand stitched with hundreds of gold and silver beads that would have been right at home in a New York nightclub in the Seventies.

Whether Moratti will succeed in getting today’s subcultures to agree on style is debatable, but when it comes to glam with a rock ‘n’ roll edge — and a message on sustainability that is increasingly appealing to today’s consumers (the brand donates 50 percent of its profits to worthy causes) — he is definitely onto something. — Alex Wynne

The sexercise part, he suggested, con-sisted of blurring gender codes rather than creating titillating outfits. Westwood noted she was one of the first designers to do this. “I like very much the idea of wearing your husband’s clothes,” she said. “It’s good for the environment that you don’t need to buy so much, you can share your clothes.”

Her next suggestion was even more eco-friendly. “It’s kind of punk because you can do it yourself, you know, you can get any of your old clothes and just shove a towel over it or put a drape over it, you know, and that’s how I want people to buy it. I would love to see men walking down the street with these dresses on,” she mused.— Joelle Diderich

Akris“Take all the colors under the sun. Only one color I think much fun. And that’s orange. Orange, I said. The silly old color who lives next to red. The one that is orangely out of its head.”

Those are the lyrics to a Sixties ditty by Ken Nordine that opened the fall show from Akris, where designer Albert Kriemler was orangely out of his head for that shade — and even more so for its neighbor.

You could sum up the collection in two

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First Lady of Style and Power

ancy Reagan was remembered Sunday as one of the most powerful and influ-ential First Ladies in modern history, a woman who brought a sense of high fash-ion and style to the White House rivaled only by Jackie Kennedy.

Reagan died Sunday at age 94 of con-gestive heart failure. She will be buried beside her husband at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Cali-fornia, according to a statement. Further details of the funeral were not available at press time.

In the high-flying Eighties, Reagan took full advantage of the burgeoning field of American designers to bring glam-our and big-name wattage to the White House. James Galanos, Adolfo, Bill Blass, Arnold Scaasi, Geoffrey Beene and Car-olina Herrera were among her favorite designers, as was jeweler Kenneth Jay Lane.

Drawing on her own bedrock con-servative values and her unapologetic faith in the power of intuition, Reagan stripped the platitudes from the tradi-tional woman-behind-the-man stereo-type of First Ladies and was a sharp contrast to the drab years of the Carter administration. Along the way, she helped publicize the American fashion industry, and, during her eight years in the White House, American designers became ambassadors of good taste and good business, commanding headlines right alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, trickle-down economics and Star Wars defense buildup.

Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator at the museum at F.I.T., said, “Nancy Reagan, like Jackie Kennedy and Michelle Obama, used the position of First Lady to highlight the significance of American fashion.”

Even as she was criticized for wearing designer dresses, for announcing her plans for new White House china, and for redecorating the family quarters, she refused to tone down her image, insisting that high style did not clash with political acumen. The First Lady remained eager to keep up with the goings-on in soci-ety and fashion even once she was in the White House. An assistant one day phoned the Washington office of WWD to complain that Reagan wasn’t getting her copy of the newspaper on time every day — so one was sent to her by over-night courier every evening to make sure it arrived on her desk the next day.

Her goal was to turn Washington into a social hub, and to do that she had to prove that politicians do not have to be frumpy to wield power. She filled the White House with famous friends, inviting actors such as Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Stewart to some of the 56 state dinners held during her husband’s two terms, along with New York socialites such as Brooke Astor and David Rocke-feller, and designers including Valentino, de la Renta, and Herrera.

“She always kept a sense of honor and love for her county and her hus-band,” Herrera said Sunday. “There was

Photograph by SAL TRAINA

Nancy Reagan died Sunday at age 94 of heart failure. She will be buried beside her husband at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

By ROSEMARY FEITELBERG and SUSAN WATTERS with contributions from KRISTI ELLIS

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elegance and style that she gave to the position of First Lady of the country. She became a symbol of American fashion. The White House was always kept in the same historical way that Jacqueline Kennedy did. Everything she did, I must say, she did with great style, and she never forgot who she was representing in a historical way — that she was the First Lady of this country.

“Also, we must not forget her ‘Just Say No’ fight against drugs among young people. She was not only about fash-ion, elegance and style — she was also fighting for very important things. She was always very quiet but always with her husband, following him. She was not trying to run the country — she was the perfect First Lady.

“She became a symbol of American fashion, the truly, really American fashion, in every way — not just the way she was running the White House but the way she looked every time. She was perfect. That is the legacy that we will remember with all the dignity and all the honor she had for this country — and love for this country. She was very strong, but very dedicated to who she was. She had that very clear in her mind.”

Reagan knew what it meant to be a star, and fashion was key to building that image. Just as in moviemaking, nothing happens by accident. She used fashion to communicate with her audience. In the White House, she made “Reagan Red” her hallmark. But not before she used her inaugural-ball gown to make a different point. She was 59 and not given to lifting weights when her husband was elected president. It wasn’t youth or upper-arm muscle tone she wanted to convey when she called on Galanos to design a white, single shoulder sheath for the 1981 inaugural balls. She was telling Americans to take note of her husband’s political destiny. The dress was the same design she had worn 16 years before, when Ronald Reagan became governor of California.

She remained unapologetic about her style, even from the early days of her husband’s political career. In a 1966 interview in WWD, entitled “Reagan for Real,” she said, “I’m afraid people are going to have to take me just as I am.” Then on the campaign trail with her Cal-ifornia-governorship-seeking husband, she said her stumping wardrobe would consist of “the clothes I wear for my normal life, a suit with a blouse is most comfortable.”

Highly private and speech-shy, her clothing choices were chronicled throughout her husband’s political ascent, from the white wool Galanos she wore to his inaugural ball as governor to the peach crepe faille Galanos ensem-ble she chose for Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s 1981 wedding. In July of that same year, she went with an Adolfo white crinkle-cotton, full-skirted, square-dance dress with a red, white and blue sash for a surprise birthday barbecue for the president’s 58th. Her all-American style spiked Saks Fifth Avenue’s sales of

Adolfo designs by 200 percent nationally in January 1981. She later faced critics for an inaugural wardrobe that cost $25,000, but Reagan allowed that the gown was a gift and would be later given to the Smithsonian.

Twice a guest at the CFDA awards, she received a lifetime-achievement award in 1988 while wearing a “Reagan Red” Oscar de la Renta gown. In May 2002, looking back on her eight-year run in the White House, she told WWD simply, “I miss the whole thing.”

T hrough the decades, Reagan’s style was often reduced to one word — Adolfo — whose striking red daytime suits and clean, but not-to-be-missed evening gowns she wore

repeatedly during her White House years.Reached Sunday, the designer said he

first befriended Reagan when her husband was the governor of California, a post he held from 1967 through 1975. “I’ve known Mrs. Reagan for a long, long time. We met through Betsy Bloomingdale, and then we became friends until just now,” he said. “She always called me directly. I never spoke with people connected to her.”

For his visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave-nue, Adolfo would arrive armed with a selec-tion of samples that Reagan would choose from based on whatever she had in mind. Follow-up fittings were practically incidental. “Mostly all the time they were just perfect, because she was between a size four and six. It was just right,” Adolfo recalled.

“Reagan Red” was not something that Adolfo developed on his own. “She had her

own ideas, and then we would get together. It was a very pleasant arrangement. There are so many people who have different ideas about Mrs. Reagan, but I can tell you sincerely she was a charming, very nice and warm person,” he said. “We had a really wonderful relationship. I would go to the White House and that, but I was not part of her social circle. We were just good friends. It was not like the people who wanted to be with Mrs. Reagan blah, blah, blah.”

Adolfo was often in the loop when more formal eveningwear was needed for state dinners, such as the one in October 1981 for King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain. Reagan went with a striking off-the-shoulder black and gold gown with Eighties-worthy

exaggerated sleeves and a black bodice from the designer. But he wasn’t always told what his designs would be used for. “Sometimes I knew, sometimes I didn’t,” Adolfo said.

“Sometimes Mr. Reagan would come in to say hello. He was a very nice, charming gentleman. After he was no longer the president, I went to their house in California. Everything was just perfect. In fact, the last time I saw Mr. Reagan, he was taking me all around the house, showing me all the tro-phies and all kinds of things,” the designer remembered.

Biographer William Novak on Sunday recalled feeling uneasy as he walked down the long “rather stately” corridor upstairs in the residence quarters of the White House for his introduction to Reagan in the late Eighties — a feeling that never really subsided in the nearly two years they collaborated on “My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan.”

“This was a person who had a very scary media image. I was a little nervous about meeting her and working with her. She turned out to be nothing like that,” he said Sunday. “Even though reality showed a very different person, I never quite got past it. The other thing that made me nervous was this was a person who would rather listen than talk. That is a great quality in a friend, but if you are trying to help them write their memoir, you want them to hold forth.

“The vulnerability is what surprised me most,” Novak continued. “She was soft-spoken, grieving and reticent. If I’m not mistaken, she lost both of her parents during her White House years. And she almost lost her husband in a way that we, the public, didn’t understand at the time. The [assassination attempt] shooting early in the first term [in March 1981] was, as we all now know, much more serious than we were told. And they both had cancer during the White House years. This image that I had read about and heard about of this powerful, behind-the-scenes woman — I never saw any of that. I saw this person who was hurting and who was grieving. And she treated me very nicely.”

Born Anne Frances Robbins to an ambitious, Broadway stage actress in the middle of Prohibition, Reagan was two years old when she first moved to the Washington. Determined

to pursue her own acting career, her mother divorced her husband and left her daughter with her older sister, husband and cousin in Bethesda, Md. Mother and daughter reunited six years later in Chicago where Nancy Robbins, age 8, worked hard to please her mother’s new husband, the conservative neurosurgeon Loyal Davis. She was 16, a junior at Girls’ Latin School when he agreed to adopt her.

After graduating from Smith College with a major in drama, she used her mother’s stage contacts, including Spencer Tracy, Zasu Pitts, and her godmother, Alla Nazimova, to win parts in New York and Los Angeles, where, at age 28, she signed a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Nine months later, she met Ronald Reagan, enlist-ing his aid as president of the Screen Actors Guild, to remove her name from a mailing list for Communist literature. Soon after, she landed her breakout role, as a sincere, preg-nant, middle-class housewife in “The Next Voice You Hear,’’ the fourth of her 11 movies.

Throughout her life, Reagan often made female reporters wince when she confided, “My life began when I met Ronnie.” Truth told, she was saying a lot about her disci-pline, focus, and determination.

When the couple met, Ronald Reagan was reeling from his divorce from Jane Wyman, his Academy Award-winning first wife. Helping him paint the fence at his ranch, introducing him to her parents, and support-ing his every move and mood, she hung in there until, three years later, he asked her

“Everything she did, I must say, she did with great style, and she never

forgot who she was representing in a historical way — that she was

the first lady of this country.” — Carolina Herrera

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Nancy Reagan wearing YSL with husband Ronald Reagan at the

opening of the Costume Institute’s show called “Vanity Fair” in 1977.

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First Lady of Style and Power CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

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to marry him. From then on, Nancy Reagan dedicated herself to forging his destiny. In Ronald Reagan’s days as host of “General Electric Theater,” she raved about GE’s labor-saving household devises. As wife of the governor of California, she courted the wives of California’s richest, most ambitious conservatives to bankroll his campaign. Over five political campaigns, she grew from feeling wounded whenever the press dared criticize her husband to becoming the perfect political wife.

Through all her roles and on every stage, she relied on American designers to build her image as a wife who was refined, likeable and always a cut above the rest. As Carolyn Deaver, the wife of Michael Deaver, Nancy Reagan’s closest political aide, observed, “I knew she was different when I saw she only had one grommet on her belt.”

She also used fashion to project and polish an image of respectability without ever having to reveal anything specific about the influence she wielded when the spotlight went dark.

“I experience the world through my intu-itions and feelings,” she wrote in “My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan.”

Many of those feelings ran counter to the culture of her times. In an era of science, economics and huge military expenditures, Reagan was known for taking everything personally. When her husband spoke publicly, she focused only on him, in what reporters labeled “the gaze.”

When her husband was shot ten weeks into his presidency, she turned to astrology to manage his schedule. Four years later, when Chief of Staff Donald Regan refused to follow her wishes, she had him fired. In return, he promoted his own memoir by revealing her secret. When the public criticized her for being too self-involved, she began the Just Say No crusade against drug use.

Above all, Nancy Reagan played to win. When Reagan challenged Gerald Ford’s can-didacy at the 1976 Republican Convention, she went head-to-head with Betty Ford at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City. After arriving a few minutes after the incumbent First Lady, Reagan took her seat as the crowd cheered. Betty Ford fought back, dancing “The Bump” with Tony Orlando. Nancy Reagan may have been fuming, but in her simple Galanos dresses she always looked the picture of feminine chic.

When the press mocked Reagan as out of touch with the rest of the nation, comparing her style as First Lady to Marie Antoinette, she scored points by making fun of her-self. Appearing at the press corps’ annual Gridiron musical review, she changed into a funky getup and performed her own Barbra Streisand-like rendition of “Second-Hand Clothes.”

Reagan’s competitive approach to fashion occasionally landed her in the fashion faux zone. Three months after her Gridiron triumph, she overplayed her hand. On a ten-day, six-nation whirlwind European state visit, she offered an American twist to Coco Chanel’s little black dress. Welcoming France’s socialist President Francois Mit-terrand to dinner at the American Embassy in Paris, she looked oddly out of place in a black chiffon skirt over rhinestone-studded, black satin knickers designed by Galanos.

Far more damaging were the 1988 reports that Reagan, about to leave office, had broken her 1982 pledge not to accept free clothes. She denied the charges until Los Angeles designer David Hayes said she had returned about half of the 60 to 80 made-to-order outfits he had given her. Reports that

she had violated the Ethics in Government Act by not paying taxes on gifts meant that both she and President Reagan could be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Only then did she instruct her aides to start hauling out armfuls of clothing she had kept for the last six years.

In the decades after she departed the White House, Reagan worked tirelessly to protect the image of her husband while at the same time fighting for research into Alzheimer’s disease — which her husband suffered from. She was proud to have been invited to the White House by every president after her husband, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. She organized exhibitions and events at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., to reach out to young people born after the Reagans left the White House. And after years fighting for conservative issues, she changed the playbill

to celebrate bipartisan cooperation. She even sparred with a sitting Republican president, George W. Bush, calling on him to overturn the ban on stem cell research to find a cure for Alzheimer’s.

Along the way, she occasionally talked about her disappointments as a mother. The stiffest criticisms of Nancy Reagan, more than from the press or the political opposition, came from her children, Patti Davis and Ron, and her stepchildren, Michael and Maureen Reagan. Unable to control their message, she settled for the role of perfect daughter. Ending the preface to her memoir, she wrote, “My mother used to say, ‘Play the hand that’s dealt you,’ and that is what I have always tried to do.’’

Reagan’s death prompted an outpouring of condolences from former presidents and first ladies, as well as President and First Lady Obama. The Obamas said that Nancy Reagan

“once wrote that nothing could prepare you for living in the White House.”

“She was right, of course. But we had a head start, because we were fortunate to ben-efit from her proud example, and her warm and generous advice,” the Obamas said in a joint statement.

“Our former First Lady redefined the role in her time here. Later, in her long goodbye with President Reagan, she became a voice on behalf of millions of families going through the depleting, aching reality of Alzheimer’s, and took on a new role, as advocate, on behalf of treatments that hold the potential and the promise to improve and save lives.

“We offer our sincere condolences to their children, Patti, Ron, and Michael, and to their grandchildren. And we remain grateful for Nancy Reagan’s life, thankful for her guid-ance, and prayerful that she and her beloved husband are together again.”

“Laura and I are saddened by the loss of former First Lady Nancy Reagan,” said for-mer president George W. Bush. “Mrs. Reagan was fiercely loyal to her beloved husband, and that devotion was matched only by her devotion to our country.

“Her influence on the White House was complete and lasting. During her time as First Lady and since, she raised awareness about drug abuse and breast cancer.” Bush said. “When we moved into the White House, we benefited from her work to make those his-toric rooms beautiful. Laura and I are grateful for the life of Nancy Reagan, and we send our condolences to the entire Reagan family.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton called Reagan an “extraordinary woman, a gracious lady, a proud mother and a devoted wife to President Reagan, her Ronnie.”

“Her strength of character was legendary, particularly when tested by the attempted assassination of the president and throughout his battle with Alzheimer’s,” the Clintons said. “She leaves a remarkable legacy of good that includes her tireless advocacy for Alzhei-mer’s research and the Foster Grandparents program. We join all America in extending our prayers and condolences to her beloved children and their entire family during this difficult time.”

“Ronald Reagan could not have accom-plished everything that he did without his wife Nancy,” said Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. “As first lady, she brought a sense of grace and dignity to the White House. She roused the country to redouble the fight against drugs. And she showed us all the meaning of devotion as she cared for Presi-dent Reagan throughout his long goodbye.

“She loved her husband, and she loved her country. This was her service. It was her way of giving back,” Ryan said. “And all of us are very grateful. So on behalf of the entire House, I wish to extend our condolences to the Reagan family and offer our prayers on the passing of a great American, Nancy Reagan.”

Catherine Fenton, former assistant social secretary to Nancy Reagan, said in a CNN interview that the former first lady leaves a “remarkable” legacy among American first ladies, from her public fight against the prolif-eration of drugs to her efforts to raise aware-ness for Alzheimer’s. She also noted that her personal challenges, including a battle against breast cancer, were fought in the public eye and helped raise awareness for the disease.

Fenton said Reagan had “style and [a] presence in the White House.”

“She had a great finesse. She did come from Hollywood, and she had a great eye. We all, as young women, learned so much from her — the taste, the style, the protocol, creating an elegant, warm evening, whether it was for a small private group of friends or a state dinner,” Fenton said. “She did it very well, and she worked hard to make things just as perfect as possible. So we will miss her. She was remarkable.”

First Lady of Style and Power

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Portrait of the first lady, Nancy Reagan in The White

House circa 1984.

Nancy Reagan wearing a knelength leopard-print coat, visiting Smith College circa 1969.

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