PARIS, France — The home of Nina Ricci is a slight oddity within the excessive vogue world of early twentieth century Paris. Though for a few years it was some of the profitable couture homes in that metropolis, it was by no means thought-about to be on the identical degree as its rivals on the time — Chanel, Vionnet, or Lanvin. Its clientele, which gave it nice monetary success for a lot of its life, was far more French haute bourgeoisie than aristocratic and worldwide, as most different French homes have been.
Nina Ricci, the home and its eponymous identify, grew out of a retail firm referred to as the Home of Raffin that, though having fun with monetary success, was in any other case thought-about as simply one other of the various small dressmaking and couture institutions frequent in Paris within the early years of the twentieth century. (By the Twenties, there have been 80 such institutions registered.) It was from this degree that the home of Nina Ricci was created.
Nina Ricci, was born Maria Nielli in Turin, Italy in 1883 — Nina was a childhood nickname that caught. Her father was a shoemaker and when Nina — certainly one of 5 youngsters — was younger, he moved the household and his enterprise to Monte Carlo. After his demise, the household scattered and Nina, alongside along with her mom and sister, went to Paris. Though solely 14, she obtained a job as a seamstress. Just a few years later, whereas driving a bus, she met Luigi Ricci, the son of a Florentine jeweller, who she shortly married, altering her identify to Nina Ricci. Aged 23, she gave beginning to a son, Robert, the person who would later play an excellent longer-lasting function within the model than its founder — and who she raised singlehandedly after turning into a widow at solely 27 years outdated.
In 1908, Ricci joined the Home of Raffin, the place she would work for the subsequent 24 years, controlling her personal solely autonomous division throughout the organisation, along with her personal workshops, seamstresses and clientele. Her creativity, though not solely to bourgeois tastes, was not so Parisienne that she alienated her core buyer — the provincial higher center class girl. The truth is, Ricci had a profitable facet enterprise promoting her patterns to regional dressmakers and seamstresses in addition to promoting her creations direct.
Nina Ricci’s son Robert grew as much as be a gifted entrepreneur, inheriting his mom’s streak that had made her nearly as good at enterprise as with creativity. He was 27 when, on the demise of Monsieur Raffin, the agency was wound up, leaving Nina Ricci, aged 49, very comfortably off and prepared for a well-deserved retirement. However Robert, who had skilled in promoting and had an excellent enterprise head, knew learn how to reactivate the ambition that had made his mom so profitable, to not point out rich by bourgeois requirements.
Ricci agreed — however on one situation: if the brand new agency have been to grow to be a actuality, Robert should be answerable for your complete enterprise facet, whereas she was left to train full artistic management. He acquiesced, though shrewdly persevering with to pursue another enterprise actions on the sideline, simply in case the venture failed. In 1932, the high fashion home of Nina Ricci was based. Robert Ricci secured a premises on the Rue des Capucines for an atelier and becoming rooms and the pair set to work.
From the very first Nina Ricci present, the mom and son collaboration — distinctive within the historical past of couture — was a hit. Whereas Robert’s enterprise acumen was trusted by traders and enterprise collaborators , it was his mom who was the figurehead. She reworked what had, underneath its earlier identify, been a mean institution right into a home to be recognised and revered by the ladies who dressed there.
Sadly, the chroniclers of the inter-war interval in France — Cecil Beaton, Edna Woolman Chase (editor-in-chief of American Vogue) and Janet Flanner (The New Yorker’s correspondent in Paris) — whose obligation it was to tell their readers of the doings of the highest homes, made no point out of Nina Ricci. A shocking omission till one remembers their remit: to maintain international readers, vacationers and attainable purchasers (particularly People) conscious of what was being executed by the couturiers whose remit was worldwide. This was by no means Ricci’s goal clientele.
Nina Ricci absolutely entered couture in 1932 and, not like another entrant to that world, she had nothing to study. She by no means sketched, preferring to create instantly on the dummy and, as soon as happy, hand over the prototype straight to the workroom. This hands-on confidence and sensitivity to supplies places Ricci alongside Alix Gres when it comes to technical expertise. Each element got here from her and her alone. She had no laborious and quick guidelines, and was trusted as a result of her clients felt safe within the information that she knew their needs and wishes and put them on the very high of the design expertise. In a approach, she dressed her purchasers as she dressed herself: discreetly and gently.
Ricci was proud to decorate lots of France’s first women of theatre and movie — and for a average outlay in contrast with the very excessive costs charged by many different vogue homes. She was revered for being identified to take care of the very best high quality of design, material and workmanship and nonetheless undercut homes like Lanvin and Chanel by, on common, a 3rd. She was additionally one of many first in Paris to supply two ‘middleman’ collections a yr geared toward younger girls and providing garments that, requiring solely two fittings, have been appreciably cheaper than her predominant vary.
With such strategies, the label expanded dramatically between 1932 and 1939, elevated in variety of workers from 40 to 450 and was accepted as dressing extra girls than another main label in Paris.
Robert Ricci’s robust will and tempered judgement have been the rock upon which his mom stood. They not often disagreed and, in the event that they did, not like many household companies, an answer and reconciliation was discovered.
Within the Nineteen Thirties, Robert Ricci determined that if the corporate was to develop — and acquire international gross sales — Nina Ricci wanted a perfume. In 1937, he closed his promoting enterprise, realising that his mom wanted time to develop the idea on which the Nina Ricci enterprise had been conceived. Each father or mother and youngster have been decided to maintain it a household concern. In 1941 his mom signed over half of the capital of the corporate to him and the Fragrance division was created. Coeur-Joie, the primary Ricci perfume, was launched in 1946, with a crystal Lalique bottle (the household manufactured solely for Ricci till the Nineteen Fifties) and an promoting marketing campaign drawn by Christian Bérard. A sluggish starter, it will definitely caught as much as with different main fragrance gross sales.
However the actual vindication of Robert Ricci’s willpower to have a perfume that might be acknowledged world wide got here with L’Air du Temps in 1948 with its iconic entwined doves on the stopper. One of many nice perfumes, it stands with Chanel No 5, Arpège by Lanvin, Pleasure by Patou and Shalimar by Guerlain as one of many world’s traditional fragrances nonetheless admired right now.
In 1954, Nina Ricci was tiring and the choice was made for her younger assistant, Jules-François Crahay, to succeed her. The Belgian designer’s 1959 assortment, ‘Crocus’ — which had a swimsuit of the identical identify — was a triumph, lastly giving Nina Ricci the worldwide recognition that Robert Ricci had longed for. It even attracted John Fairchild, the acerbic, quixotic head of Girls’s Put on Every day to go to a Ricci present for the primary time in a few years of following Paris vogue. As he has mentioned, “Francois had successful on his arms and that swimsuit ‘Crocus’…was to be copied all over the place.” That very same yr the home went on to create its ‘Mademoiselle Ricci’ line of demi-couture, which presaged the arrival of the model’s ready-to-wear.
In 1963, Crahay moved on to affix Lanvin and his place was taken by Gérard Pipart, who had beforehand labored for Balmain, Fath, and Patou amongst others, and had a large expertise of all points of vogue, together with journalism and ready-to-wear. In his greater than 30 years on the helm of the model, he outlived each its founders — Maria Ricci died in 1970 and Robert in 1988.
