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THE RUDI GERNREICH BOOK |
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TIME magazine cover, December 1, 1967. (Copyright © 1967 Time Warner Inc. Reprinted by permission) The Gernreich headquarters at 8460 Santa Monica Boulevard was a square stucco saltbox painted khaki-a modern, almost mysterious building. I was always struck by what I saw as the symbolism of that building standing alone on a highly trafficked street just as Rudi stood alone in the world of fashion. The building's only decoration was the twelve-foot-high carved panel doors on which the designer's name was spelled out in chrome letters-all in sans serif uppercase. Inside, the setting was part Bauhaus, part 2001, part preecology (there was a zebra-skin rug on the floor), part post-status (a single Tshirt with the designer's picture on it was tacked on the wall that was once covered with Gernreich on the cover of Time). Everything in the showroom was either white (three walls and the floor made of hexagonal bathroom tiles), black (the leather on the chrome-framed Marcel Breuer chairs and sofa), or khaki (one burlap wall). The only color was the green floor-to-ceiling jungle of Schefflera and palm, and the red and green in the lithographs by Carmi. There were no family photographs, no scrapbooks, no tourist's treasures, no hidden bar timed to open at the stroke of 5:30, not even a gold reproduction of his one millionth no-bra bra.
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