FASHION / SENSE OF STYLE : Anne Klein’s Gone but It’s Not a Trend
The announcement last week that the Anne Klein collection would cease production after delivery of its spring shipments spawned gloomy speculation that the desire for American designer clothes has dried up, withered by a parched economy and the disinterest of fashion- weary consumers.
Louis Dell’Olio, who co-designed Anne Klein for 10 years with Donna Karan and continued as the company’s sole design director for another eight, said to make the specific problems of Anne Klein serve as an example of general fashion industry ills would be a stretch. In a phone interview from New York, Dell’Olio said, “A lot of bad business decisions were made--No. 1, firing me.”
In 1993, he was replaced by Richard Tyler, the first Los Angeles-based designer to head a major American line. Tyler brought the New York company the press attention its owners craved, but the black fly in their Chardonnay was the feeling among store buyers and Anne Klein loyalists that they had been abandoned.
“When you start getting very bare and tight and revealing, then you’re only appealing to a small group of women,” Dell’Olio said. “The Anne Klein philosophy was to make refined, classic, well-made clothes of beautiful fabrics that were fashionable but not trendy, that would work for a huge number of women. When Donna and I were designing it, we learned very quickly that we couldn’t suddenly step out and design avant-garde clothes or the press would say we weren’t being Anne Klein. One of the reasons Donna left is [because] she was frustrated by that.”
Tyler was frustrated as well, and departed after a year. His successor was Patrick Robinson, who had worked under Giorgio Armani.
“So in three years they went from me to Tyler to Robinson,” Dell’Olio said. “When the press Tyler got didn’t translate into sales, they tried to backtrack, but by then the company had lost its identity.”
The less expensive Anne Klein II and A Line collections will continue, as will such licensed goods as shoes and watches.
Dell’Olio’s first collection for Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and the Canadian luxury store Holt Renfrew will appear in late summer under the label Dei Tre. “I guess it will replace the Anne Klein collection now,” he said. “The designer business is definitely not dead and it never will be. It sets the pace and the taste level for everything below it.”
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If You Wear It, They Will Come: Even if Kevin Costner’s big summer movie wasn’t “Tin Cup,” director Ron Shelton’s romantic comedy about a golf hustler, he’d be the ideal model for the new Giorgio Armani Golf collection. The line for men and women, sold at the Armani boutique in Beverly Hills and Neiman Marcus, includes knit polos, sweaters, trousers and shorts in either subdued tones of greige and navy or country club hues like peach and green.
Tommy Tune, the 6-foot-6 dancer and choreographer, is often asked if he ever considered a career in basketball. “No,” he has replied. “I never liked the outfits.” I’ve always subscribed to the Tune credo. If the clothes are cute, any sport is worth a try.
* Sense of Style appears Thursdays in Life & Style.
