Ralph Rucci’s Spring 2024 Couture Assortment Is Made for Swanning

Ralph Rucci doesn’t want Ryan Murphy to provide him an training on the swans. Having labored for Halston through the girls’ heyday, Rucci is well-versed within the disciplined class they favored, as is evidenced in an identical coat and costume in a black-and-white matelassé in his new couture assortment.

What Rucci has in widespread together with his previous mentor is a perception in an unencumbered silhouette, however this doesn’t make him a minimalist. This designer’s work is distinguished by floor therapies reminiscent of suspension strategies, trapunto-like particulars, and touches borrowed from his personal work in addition to from the East. This outing, for instance, makes use of comb-distressed lace and burnt ostrich feathers “trapped” inside tulle.

The gathering opens with an armor-like alligator tunic with a black raffia skirt suspended from the liner—stylish, if a bit formal. Simpler is the textured Elsa—as in Peretti—shirt. (NB that the bridal look is accessorized with an Elsa Peretti rosary.) Lighter nonetheless is Rucci’s hybrid of the LBD / all-American shirtwaist in hand-tucked black georgette. The linear impact of tucking on that shirtdress is replicated elsewhere within the horizontally positioned rows of grosgrain ribbon tied along with a tulle costume; missing stretch these seem a bit stiff. Extra convincing is the designer’s use of fluid aprons in silk, velvet, beads, or pearls to put on slim pants. 

Reviving a way he first utilized in 2004, Rucci has made an ivory coat of double-face wool with mitred open-work cut-outs. He says he’s hoping somebody will order a bias draped one-shoulder costume constructed from two oval sample items made within the vein of one among his design icons, Madame Grès. One other affect is Cristobal Balenciaga. A wrapped costume that contains a panel of feathery tattered chiffon evokes a way of poise and asymmetry within the grand custom of the Spanish grasp.