He’s dressed Lee Radziwill and Whoopi Goldberg, Gwyneth Paltrow and Patti Smith – and Andre Leon Talley.
He’s been the subject of an exhibition at the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum and his gowns are in the the permanent collections of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the De Young Museum in San Francisco and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. A documentary on his life, narrated by Martha Stewart, premiered on the Sundance Channel.
He’s twice been nominated for the CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year Award – and in 2002, he became the first American in sixty years to be invited by the French Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture to show his couture collection in Paris.
The man is Ralph Rucci, the man behind the luxury line of clothing known as Chado Ralph Rucci – and this year, in honor of Rucci’s connection to French haute couture, the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts will bestow Rucci with its Visionary Award for Fashion at a signature Fashion Show at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center on the 8th of April, 2011.
A native of Philadelphia and a graduate of Philly’s Temple University (with a degree in philosophy), Rucci represents some of the best of what PIFA celebrates during the course of its three-week reign in Philadelphia: the innovation and creativity that infuses all forms of art. As well as a fashion designer, Rucci is a highly-regarded painter whose work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the States.
PIFA’s Fashion Show will also include student designs from the fashion departments of four of Philadelphia’s universities – all of them competing for an internship at Chado Ralph Rucci in New York. The evening’s grande finale will be an exhibition of Rucci’s designs.
Fashion people everywhere, listen up: this isn’t some television show; this isn’t Project Runway. This is the real thing. Get thee to Philly for PIFA’s Fashion Show on the 8th of April.
DETAILS: April 8, 2011 @ 8 pm, Commonwealth Plaza, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 Broad Street, Philadelphia Tickets: $25 – $100
LINK: Ralph Rucci PIFA Fashion Show
TICKET LINK: PIFA Fashion Show Tickets
