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THE RUDI GERNREICH BOOK |
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1960, modeling a typical Rudi maillot in the window of JAX. (photograph © William Claxton) JAX When I was a teenager, I discovered a terrific shop in Beverly Hills called JAX. I glanced at a dress in the window and the heavens parted-a giant thunderbolt riveted me to the spot. My life changed forever. What I saw was a dress that would now be called a caftan. It was short black crepe and had two stripes running from the left shoulder to the hem. One stripe was ochre, and the other was orange. The dress had no bust darts, no waistband. It was as flat as a kimono and was hung on a wire hanger. All I could see was the body that wasn't in the dress. What that dress could do for a body-moving, changing, enveloping, revealing a body. This was designed by someone who loved bodies. This person had to be a dancer. And what a shock it was next to the other clothes of the day. Everything from haute couture to the Sears catalogue was based on Dior's "New Look." Every woman's garment in the world had a million darts, seams, wasp waists, petticoats, shelves to put bosoms in, and cupolas for hips. Even anorexics wore "Merry Widow" corsets to give themselves hourglass figures. And here was this supremely elegant, simple, sexy rebuttal to all of thatthis perfect dress, this completely logical, alluring way to be a woman. This dress on this hanger was all about arms and legs and feet and necks and movement, and yet it was hanging-static-waiting for a body it could enhance rather than dominate and contort. Looking at that dress, I thought, "I don't know who designed that, but someday I'm going to marry him or something."
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