Following the thread of our In Vogue: The 1990s podcast, we are closing out the year and heading into the new one with a series of newly digitized archival shows from the decade that fashion can’t—and won’t—let go of. Designed by Narciso Rodriguez, Cerruti’s spring 1997 ready-to-wear collection was presented in October 1996 in Paris.
Narciso Rodriguez was 35 with years of experience under his belt when, in December 1996, Vogue declared him a “sudden sensation.” He’d been hired as a consultant to Cerruti and produced two well-received collections, but what sparked the profile was the perfect ivory slip dress he designed for his best friend Carolyn Bessette to wear at her private wedding to John F. Kennedy, Jr. Just as the wedding of Diana Spencer and the Prince of Wales defined the 1980s, so this secret ceremony on Cumberland Island did the 1990s.
The slip returned in Rodriguez’s spring 1997 Cerutti show, but nothing resembling Carolyn’s iconic dress. There would only ever be one of those, he said. Strength and fragility met in the collection. One of the things that distinguished it was that its roots could easily be traced back to the American tradition, which in Paris, was something rare.
Below, the designer shares his memories of the 1990s and considers why the decade continues to be so impactful.
“It was a small consultancy that I had at Cerruti, it wasn’t a big appointment. The first two shows, I think they were just kind of testing the waters. They hired me to consult, and it became more complicated. I was actually working full-time at TSE Cashmere here in New York and flying there to consult for them. I was busy.
It was a great moment in Paris for fashion, there were so many great designers showing there: Ann Demeulemeester, Martine Sitbon. I worked on Carolyn’s wedding dress in Paris and I showed [my third Cerruti collection] right after Carolyn’s wedding, and I think everybody expected to see her wedding dress as evening dresses. But you know what? I did sportswear.
I really enjoyed working in men’s wear materials. Many of these [looks were made with] menswear materials that I had taken and cut on the bias. There’s interesting piecing that gets lost in the men’s plaid. There’s also great ease to [the collection], you know: like the slip, the fragility, the mix of the masculine and feminine. These were the girls that I knew, that dressed like this to go to the Odeon and to go to work. Certainly having Carolyn by my side was always such a great influence and such a great inspiration all the time.
My heroes were Anne Klein, Donna Karan, they dressed women, they dressed themselves; it was the invention of American sportswear. That obviously had a huge impact. I was a kid when that was happening, I was studying, I was in my early teens. That’s always a part of my work and the way that I think about clothing, more than showboating.
There was a great ease to this, there was a shirt and a skirt, which was kind of bold to show for Paris. You have to look at the landscape; in Paris at the time everything was very conceptual and studied, which I loved. I used to go to the shows and see other designers’ [work] and how methodically and precisely they engineered their fabrics and cuts. And then there was the reality, which I’m always more fascinated with; what are we really going to wear? The most audacious thing that you could show in Paris was real clothes.
The fashion before the ’90s was not my personal favorite, like that whole ’80s moment, the artificiality of fashion. It got very busy. And there was a lot of stuff: a lot of brands, and a lot of names, and a lot of things…and everything had to match. You had all that stuff all at once. And then the ’90s came and it kind of washed that away. I was so fortunate to live that experience in New York, going to places like the Odeon and living in the East Village.
The simplicity of it and the practicality and the realness and the honesty of that kind of style resonates today because [there is] so much [that is] artificial, whether it’s photographs on social media, all sorts of all sorts of body augmentation and dysmorphia. There’s a kindness and a simplicity and a gentleness to Kate’s fragility, to Carolyn Murphy’s fragility, her beauty.
[My work has] never been minimal, because minimal is void of emotion. When you look at those slips, and the cuts, and the bias, they may not be as ornate or complicated as a Galliano collection, but there’s the same thought process and craft to cutting the bias pieces. The thought, like how to cut a bias plaid skirt in menswear fabric so that it drapes like a woman’s fabric; all of those things. I mean, it’s very considered and it’s very emotional. Who’s a minimalist? I always preferred purist and clean, those terms, to minimal.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
