CLOSET DRAMA : Conservative Lines Converge With Rock Theatrics to Create the Tyler Trafficante Look
COMPARED TO OTHERS in the razzle-dazzle world of fashion, Richard Tyler, an L.A.-by-way-of-Australia designer and boutique owner, neither razzles nor dazzles. Painfully shy and perfectly content to toil in the anonymity of his downtown Los Angeles studio, he is a 60-watt bulb in a world of neon.
But while Tyler, 40, isn’t flamboyant, his clothes are. For starters, his designs--strictly tailored suits, jackets and coats for men and women--are definitely attention grabbers, but it’s not immediately clear why . Lapel lines appear to be classic and conservative, but upon second glance, they are theatrical and exaggerated. And everything--from tails to topcoats to Chesterfields--comes in unheard-of menswear shades of orange, amber and chartreuse. In a way, they are part retro (say, Cary Grant in “The Philadelphia Story”), part rock. And his 6-month-old store, Tyler Trafficante, is a towering Art Deco bauble. All chevrons and arabesques, it rises above a neighboring synagogue on Beverly Boulevard like a plumed showgirl.
The origins of the Tyler look are indeterminate--even to him. He says he is strongly influenced by the sculpted, broad-shouldered English menswear of the ‘40s, though that is clearly not the whole picture. Tyler says he also likes the way French peasants look in their plain, lumbering black suits, and he lights up when describing Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. But on the other hand, more than a few store buyers have mistaken his men’s suits, with their pinched waists and broad shoulders, for women’s wear. And one customer correctly pinpointed a pointy-collar men’s zip-up jacket as “cowboy Jetson.”
Tyler also offers strait-laced Prince of Wales plaids and heavy doses of black, but those, he concedes, are mostly to appease menswear buyers in the New York stores--Charivari in Manhattan and If in Soho--that carry his line. Wilkes Bashford in San Francisco will sell the collection this fall. In Los Angeles, his designs are sold only at his shop.
Tyler’s off-the-rack men’s suits range from $950 to $1,200; topcoats, $1,200 to $1,800; tuxedos, $1,200. Women’s clothing costs about the same. But a large portion of Tyler’s business is producing made-to-order clothes for performers such as Prince, Bobby Brown, Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul. The money is good, but Tyler acknowledges that, for the most part, catering to flamboyant and occasionally difficult superstars “frazzles” him. “You never get used to it,” says the low-key designer.
Helping him deal with the high-power worlds of show business and fashion is his business partner, Lisa Trafficante, 33, a former actress, who is also his fiancee and aide-de-camp. Trafficante brought in two more partners, her sister, Michelle, who had a career in film development, and investor Gordon DeVol.
Tyler, though, brings much experience with both fashion retailing and celebrity clientele to the Tyler Trafficante enterprise. By the time he was 18, Tyler had a clothing store in Melbourne called Quinzy, and singers such as Elton John and Alice Cooper would pop in and buy things like black velvet capes and brightly colored quilted satin bomber jackets. In 1978, Tyler joined Rod Stewart’s “Blondes Have More Fun” tour to the United States, providing the singer with leopard- and zebra-print jackets.
The same year, Tyler closed Quinzy, moved to Los Angeles and began racking up more big-name clients: Olivia Newton-John, Cher, Anjelica Huston and the bands Supertramp, Electric Light Orchestra and the Go-Go’s.
“Ever since I can remember, I was hand-sewing,” Tyler recalls. “It’s true. Since I was about 9.” Tyler learned about fashion design--or more accurately, sewing--at his mother’s knee. She was a clothing and costume designer in Sunshine, the industrial suburb of Melbourne where he grew up.
His mother hand-embroidered priests’ robes for Our Lady’s Church in Sunshine and made costumes for the Tivoli Theater Company in Melbourne. “In this business, it’s always a deadline,” Tyler says. “While my mother was working at the machine, I’d be hand-sewing on the other end of the dress. Then she’d wrap the gowns in sheets and I’d put them over the handlebars of my bike, and I’d ride to the theater with the costumes.”
Tyler’s clothes--with their classical lines and subtle theatrical flair--are not what the world expects from clothes made in Los Angeles. “It’s really not the L.A. cut,” he says. “In menswear, the L.A. cut is a baggy, easy fit; even the suit jackets are looser. Whereas, my cuts are much more sculpted and waisted. They accentuate the body.”
Tyler disputes the idea that the L.A. customer does not care about quality. He pulls out a man’s jacket with handmade buttonholes, interior pockets and feather tacks--a tailoring detail from the ‘40s used to accentuate darts. Before retreating to his workroom, Tyler adds, “You don’t see this kind of workmanship anywhere.”
Thus it is a reverence for Old World craftsmanship, combined with a taste for blatant rock ‘n’ roll theatricality, that makes the Tyler Trafficante look work. And though it doesn’t look like it was born in L.A., it’s a mix that makes sense here.
