A Man of Leisure

In an artfully rehabbed former factory in Culver City, internationally recognized fashion designer Richard Tyler calmly negotiated the controlled chaos that buzzed backstage Friday at his first major Los Angeles fashion show in 15 years.

As hairdressers combed, TV cameras pointed and seamstresses sewed last-minute hems, the shaggy-haired 54-year-old designer cheerfully guided visitors through the racks of sleek jeans, nipped jackets, gauzy knits and sexy dresses that make up Tyler’s first venture into contemporary sportswear. He practically apologized that some of the interior seams were finished with machine overlock stitching, not his usual finicky and costly seam-binding techniques.

With most pieces in the collection priced at $300 or less, nearly 10 times less expensive than his signature line, the designer is poised to expand his business internationally by targeting a much wider range of customers.

With a $15-million business, beautiful homes in South Pasadena, Palm Springs and New York and experience at major fashion houses, the designer could relax. Instead, the collection is challenging the former rock ‘n’ roll costumer to design his first denims, new kinds of knits and to aim for a place in the hotly competitive, fast-turning contemporary fashion business. If he is highly successful, however, the line could ultimately derail the Australian’s hopes for a settled, family-centered lifestyle.

Coming in the middle of L.A.’s struggling fashion week, the debut was a milestone for both Tyler and the local fashion scene. The designer had noticeably slowed the expansion of his bicoastal, couture-based business. He and his wife and business partner, Lisa Trafficante, have simplified their personal and professional lives in recent seasons. They downsized their New York shows, sold their 37-room Gramercy Park mansion in Manhattan last year for a reported $13.5-million profit, set up smaller digs in the meat-packing district and turned down offers to design for other companies. They still operate a Beverly Boulevard boutique, manufacture couture bridal wear and sell a licensed scarf and shoe line.

Yet for the first time in his career, the famously independent designer took his runway bow with a co-designer, Erica Davies, a 30-year-old freelancer. Together, they distilled Tyler’s signature tailoring into a casual, streetwise style that Tyler called “the essence of L.A.” This week’s showroom sales to about two dozen stores, including some from Britain and Mexico, indicated that the sportswear is headed for a strong launch.

The new collection also helps legitimize the L.A. look, which has been derided as nothing more than jeans and T-shirts, though Tyler’s view includes sophisticated tailored pieces. (See accompanying review.) His choice to debut the new sportswear line locally also endorsed L.A. as a viable alternative to New York, the capital of American fashion.

Just three years ago, however, the designer swore he’d quit the business and take up gardening rather than make cheaper clothes. “Never say never, right?” said the designer last week at the 86-year-old South Pasadena Italianate estate that he’s lavished with landscaping, marble tables and religious art. “I’m so excited,” he said happily. “I haven’t been so excited about something for a long time.”

The events of last Sept. 11 forced Tyler and Trafficante to rethink the meaning of his signature collection, which offered $2,000 jackets that sold at stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys New York and Neiman Marcus, and as often as not, to celebrities and socialites. “Couture clothing felt frivolous,” he said. “I think that’s when we really decided to do this new line. The timing just seemed appropriate.”

Though they expect to reach only $1 million in sales in their first year, the couple sees Tyler generating nearly $50 million annually by 2005, nearly three times the yearly sales of his couture and bridal lines. The sportswear collection is potentially more profitable because the simpler clothes are less complex to manufacture, sell and show.

“It’s a sign of the times,” said Tyler’s former assistant, Los Angeles designer David Cardona. “You either change with the times or you disappear.” Cardona, like many designers, would like to be able to launch a secondary line, “because the second line is the one that makes profits. It’s the upper line that gets you the exposure, and from there you do business. Most profit at the high end anyway isn’t the high-priced clothing. It’s the handbag, or the perfume or the shoes.”

Though Tyler has skipped his usual New York fashion shows for two seasons, preferring instead small-scale presentations to select editors there, the designer insists he’s not abandoning the couture line, just the hoopla.

“You begin to make a product that’s contrary to what you believe in,” he said, noting how pressures to remain “editorial” and trendy sometimes diffused his own look. “It’s not the way we wanted to work anymore.”

The Tylers wanted to simplify the business to spend more time with their 7-year-old son, Edward, whom they used to take everywhere as infant. They don’t like to be away from each other or their child.

Tyler, admitting he wasn’t feeling challenged by his prize-winning couture collection, believes he has little left to prove in his couture niche. “He’s already done his ultimate,” said Trafficante, a former actress and formidable business woman. Both also realized that more complex times called for simpler clothes.

“When you have kids and they ruin your $900 pants,” she said, “it’s kind of excruciating--even for me, who could get another pair.”

The change in the couple’s career direction was aided by a support system that the Tylers have carefully built over the years. Unlike most designers who go offshore for production, the Tylers own a factory in Monterey Park where the couture collection and the new Tyler samples are made. Former employees own nearby factories that will produce much of the new line. “I think that’s another reason why I love it so much,” Tyler said. “The owners of the factories are my friends. It’s just like a family.” Having a co-designer who understood the demographic was equally critical.

“Working with Erica made it easy,” Tyler said. “It’s probably the first time I really worked well with somebody else, apart from Lisa.” Davies, a petite blond who lives in L.A. and Italy, where she also freelances for Max Mara, said backstage that she likes how wearing the couture collection can make her feel like a lady, but in real life, “I’m more of a tomboy.”

The absence of a collaborator who understood Tyler’s take on L.A.’s sexy mix of vintage and denim is partly why he avoided a diffusion line. But he also has learned hard lessons about compromising his vision. In 1993, he attempted to impart his sexy rocker style to the Anne Klein career sportswear line. Just 19 months later, he was fired. By 1998, he had also been dismissed after a year at Byblos, an Italian sportswear company. However, neither collection has yet found major success.

The experience taught him the value of being in charge. “Maybe I’m a control freak,” he said. “The [Tyler] line is what we think it should be rather than being told what it should be.” He can maintain control of it, geographically and financially, by backing it himself and keeping it small at first.

His company has never had financial backers, not even now. “Not that we didn’t want them,” said Trafficante. “I really thought that when we started the business, that the right people would come in, but it never really presented itself that way.” Tyler still has control of his company, unlike designers such as Isaac Mizrahi, Jil Sander and Pamela Dennis, who have lost control of their businesses because of unsuccessful financial relationships.

“I’m spoiled,” he said. “I’ve always done things my way.” He’s taken to heart that a secondary collection has to be distinctly different from the signature line. His short-lived luxurious sportswear, the Richard Tyler Collection, was priced only about 30% less than the top line, which confused customers, according to Joan Kaner, Neiman Marcus fashion director. The line was produced in Italy, which guaranteed a measure of quality, but not timely deliveries. Now in a few minutes’ drive he can sort out problems at the factory and still be home in time for dinner.

“I’m happy with my lifestyle now and this new collection,” Tyler said. “We used to always work 16 hours a day. Now we actually have Saturdays and Sundays open. It’s not just, work, work, work. I wouldn’t go back to what we used to have to do.”

His leisure might be short-lived, however. He’s already speaking of Tyler’s possible expansion to menswear, accessories, free-standing stores or even a housewares collection. And he’s still making special gowns for stars, such as the lavender dress that Halle Berry wore to the Director’s Guild Awards. Berry’s stylist, Phillip Bloch, applauded Tyler’s new move.

“I think he has kind of gone back to his roots where he likes to be,” he said. Bloch’s celebrity clients still admire his clothes: “He’s not passe,” Bloch said. “And he’s so easy to work with.”

Tyler’s laid-back, generous attitude has won him many loyal fans. “Everything I learned about the fashion business, I learned from him,” said Michelle Mason, one of several former assistants who started successful fashion companies. “He’s wonderful. I have nothing but great things to say about him.”

The designer has shown a remarkable ability to remain successful through a wide range of career challenges. “He came out of nowhere and built a great business, and he still has that business,” said Susan Rolontz, a New York fashion analyst with the Tobe Report. “I have a feeling that he is Mr. Chameleon. You never know with him where he will turn up next.”