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THE RUDI GERNREICH BOOK |
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Rudy Gernreich, 1964 I have devoted most of my professional life to Rudi Gernreich. I believed totally in his talent and had the great privilege of knowing him as a dear friend. Through the years we developed as a team. One of the great signs of his genius was that he allowed me to express my talent fully. I never had to hold back when we worked together. I could criticize or suggest without fear that I was overstepping my position. We had indescribable fun together and shared the romance of creativity and collaboration. We always said if he had been a model, he would have been me, and if I had been a designer, I would have been him. During the great times that we worked with each other, an enormous amount of publicity and controversy was created. This, of course, was very positive and helpful at the time; but I have always felt that rudi's great talent was overlooked because of the headlines. I have never felt this as strongly as I do now that he is gone. It is my believe that Rudi Gernreich designed almost everything that can be designed for modern people. His designs are so logical and pure that one design will work for an elderly woman and equally well for a teenage girl. I feel that most people think of his work as of the "sixties" or "trendy," when in fact his work was more universal and classical than that of Chanel. Rudi Gernreich was an avant-garde fashion designer who started in the 1940s, was acknowledged as an innovator in the fifties, and became a "household name" in the sixties. He was best known for his design of the topless swimsuit, but the sum of his work and his design philosophy changed the course of fashion and influenced designers all over the world. His concepts have continued to feed the fashion industry, as he invented the modern way of dressing for the latter half of the twentieth century, just as Chanel had done for the earlier part of the century.
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