In just two short years, rising New York designer Rosie Assoulin has
established her own label and won plaudits for sophisticated yet sensuous
clothes that sacrifice nothing to comfort. The 30-year-old young mother
from Brooklyn, who spent just months at formal fashion school, first
started experimenting with fabric and design on her grandmother’s sewing
machine at the tender age of 13.
One of her first mentors was jewelry designer Roxanne Assoulin, her
future mother-in-law.
She later interned with the late Dominican-American fashion legend Oscar de
la Renta before spending a year at Lanvin in Paris. “I saw her working when
she was 14. She always had it,” her mother-in-law told AFP backstage at her
fashion week show, held at a public swimming pool — emptied of water — in
Greenwich Village.
Another fond memory came a few years later, when Roxanne spotted what Rosie was
wearing to a party. “She made it that afternoon. She had no threads so she
used all the threads
from the hotel, all different colors. She would make a dress that would
have 18 colors on it,” she said. With her jet black hair and Mediterranean
look, Rosie is a product of a family from all over the place and growing up
in one of the most cosmopolitan cities on earth.
As a child she says she admired the singer Dalida for her music but also her
multicultural outlook — influences that have helped inform her identity and
her sophisticated, yet edgy brand. It is her mother-in-law, Oscar de la
Renta and her time at Lanvin under the instruction of Alber Elbaz, which
instilled her with precision and creativity. In 2013, she struck out alone
with a first collection: wearable clothes made out of comfortable materials
that come with allure thanks to impeccable craftsmanship.
Vision
Assoulin says she wants to give women clothes that express their complexity
and individuality. “I try to relate to it personally because if it’s not
personal then why are
you doing it. There’s no such thing as one woman,” she told AFP. Her
fashion mirrors the designer: intelligent and feminine, but without
ostentation.
“She always surprises me because she has a vision,” says Roxanne Assoulin, who
helps out with the collections. “Sometimes, we can’t see the vision while
we’re doing the styling. But she
always knows what she wants and she’s very clear in her head about
what she wants
and how she wants it to be. “And when I see it all together I alway start
crying because she just has a
vision,” she said.
But none of Roxanne’s influences are recognizable in the end product, she says
because Rosie “tries to take it and then change it.” This year Rosie
Assoulin won an award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and
now sells her clothes in New York’s most exclusive department store,
Bergdorf Goodman, as well as in Paris.
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Her New York fashion week collection embodied her DNA: original clothes that
are simple and use color sparingly, not made to stand out whatever the cost.
There were dresses and long skirts and very wide trousers. She experimented
with swimwear, she says, such as what the top of a bikini would look like
on a dress.
“It still feels very new and exciting and scary,” she told AFP. “I hope
that doesn’t go away and that we can keep enjoying it. I think that pushes
you, the attention, and that it’s healthy.” (Thomas Urbain, AFP )
Image: AFP Photo/Andrew Toth