Nina Ricci (1883-1970) | BoF

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 way 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 known 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 Nineteen 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 — considered 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 together with her mom and sister, went to Paris. Though solely 14, she obtained a job as a seamstress. Just a few years later, whereas using 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 delivery to a son, Robert, the person who would later play an excellent longer-lasting position within the model than its founder — and who she raised singlehandedly after changing into a widow at solely 27 years previous.

In 1908, Ricci joined the Home of Raffin, the place she would work for the following 24 years, controlling her personal completely autonomous division throughout the organisation, together with her personal workshops, seamstresses and clientele. Her creativity, though not completely to bourgeois tastes, was not so Parisienne that she alienated her core buyer — the provincial higher center class lady. In actual fact, 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 pretty much 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 easy methods 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 turn into a actuality, Robert should be accountable for the whole enterprise facet, whereas she was left to train full inventive management. He acquiesced, though shrewdly persevering with to pursue another enterprise actions on the sideline, simply in case the challenge failed. In 1932, the haute couture 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 buyers and enterprise collaborators , it was his mom who was the figurehead. She reworked what had, below its earlier identify, been a median 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 stunning omission till one remembers their remit: to maintain overseas readers, vacationers and doable shoppers (particularly People) conscious of what was being carried out by the couturiers whose remit was worldwide. This was by no means Ricci’s goal clientele.

Nina Ricci totally entered couture in 1932 and, not like some other entrant to that world, she had nothing to be taught. She by no means sketched, preferring to create immediately on the dummy and, as soon as glad, 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 abilities. Each element got here from her and her alone. She had no onerous and quick guidelines, and was trusted as a result of her clients felt safe within the data that she knew their needs and desires and put them on the very prime of the design expertise. In a approach, she dressed her shoppers as she dressed herself: discreetly and gently.

Ricci was proud to decorate lots of France’s first girls of theatre and movie — and for a reasonable outlay in contrast with the very excessive costs charged by many different vogue homes. She was revered for being recognized to take care of the best high quality of design, fabric 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 aimed toward younger girls and providing garments that, requiring solely two fittings, have been appreciably cheaper than her most important 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 some other 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 achieve overseas gross sales — Nina Ricci wanted a perfume. In 1937, he closed his promoting enterprise, realising that his mom wanted time to develop the premise on which the Nina Ricci enterprise had been conceived. Each mum or dad and little one 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 Fifties) and an promoting marketing campaign drawn by Christian Bérard. A gradual starter, it will definitely caught as much as with different main fragrance gross sales.

However the true vindication of Robert Ricci’s willpower to have a perfume that will be acknowledged around the globe 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 in the present day.

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 Ladies’s Put on Each day to go to a Ricci present for the primary time in a few years of following Paris vogue. As he has stated, “Francois had a success on his fingers 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 features 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.