Narciso Rodriguez knows a thing or two about resilience.
Speaking at the WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit in New York, the fashion designer shared insights into his rise in the 1980s and 1990s working for industry heavyweights Donna Karan and Calvin Klein, and the effect of being thrust into the global spotlight in 1996 after making one of the most iconic designs in history: the cream bias-cut crepe cowl-neck wedding dress worn by Carolyn Bessette for her wedding to John F. Kennedy Jr.
“It was a very personal experience because until my children were born, she was the love of my life,” he said of the former Calvin Klein publicist who, alongside her husband, died in a plane crash in the summer of 1999.
Her fashion legacy endures today on designer mood boards and Instagram accounts.
“Carolyn’s style was no accident,” Rodriguez said. “She considered everything. She thought about things, but she had innate style and she looked amazing.
“She was a very smart woman and she didn’t need to be told what to wear,” he continued. “She had a great eye.”
Rodriguez and Bessette-Kennedy were coworkers at Calvin Klein when he was employed as an assistant designer. They struck up a friendship, and following her engagement to she asked Rodriguez to design her wedding gown.
“To have been so close to her, and to have the honor to make the dress that she was wearing for the person she loved was so personal and so incredible,” he told WWD style director Alex Badia.
Rodriguez wasn’t prepared for the aftermath of the fairytale nuptials.
“I came back from the wedding and there were news trucks in front of my apartment building, and I said to the doorman, ‘What’s all this?’ He said, ‘They’re here for you.’ It was a huge moment in my life, and opened many doors, obviously, and I got to do my work…and I created my company,” the designer said of launching his label in 1997, and building it into a bastion of sexy, architectural minimalism loved by Sarah Jessica Parker, Claire Danes, Michelle Obama and many more.
“It was the next step for me, I had apprenticed with amazing people.…I had learned from great business people at all of these companies, and I wanted to do more.”
His fragrance business with Shiseido launched in 2003 with Narciso Rodriguez for Her, inspired by a bottle of Egyptian musk oil.
“It my childhood dream, I was always mixing potions and coming up with ideas. My uncle was a big collector and bought every European fragrance before it was out on the market,” said Rodriguez, who sketched the distinct glass decanter himself.
“I had traveled to Japan and found all these interesting little bottles painted from the inside. And it sparked an idea that there is a duality to all of us. You never see what’s inside someone completely. There’s a mystery to people…and there was something very sexy about that,” he said of the inspiration for the bottle.
He has been surprised by the success of the fragrance, and its long arc. More than two decades later, it’s still among the top 10 most popular women’s scents in the world.
“I remember when we launched, being in London and hearing from the journalists that there were 70 other launches happening at the same time. And I thought, wow, that’s a lot of fragrance,” said Rodriguez. “And a lot of those fragrances aren’t around now and my fragrances continued to grow. And there are countries where it’s the number-one fragrance brand.”
Fashion has proved more challenging.
“COVID came. The retail environment wasn’t great, and I took a moment to step away from the business, and I had two amazing kids in the time of COVID that I needed to protect and spend time with,” said Rodriguez. “So there was a bit of a silver lining for me, and it gave me time to appreciate everything that I was working too hard to appreciate. You get on those schedules of many collections…you start to lose the passion….And I love to work on every single piece, I fit every piece. So it was good because it gave me a different kind of perspective on how to go forward.”
He tiptoed back into fashion with a collaboration with Spanish fast-fashion giant Zara in 2022.
“I have a good relationship with Marta Ortega Perez [nonexecutive chairwoman of Zara parent Inditex]. She and her mom both appreciated my work, they’re so intellectual and Marta has such great style. And they showed me they had all of the pieces from my first collection in 1997,” he said of how the greatest hits collection celebrating his archive came to be. “It was really great to work with them.”
Rodriguez, who is Cuban American, is delighted that he has been a beacon to other Hispanic designers, including 2024 CFDA Menswear Designer of Year Willy Chavarria, who said recently, “There would be no Willy Chavarria without Narciso Rodriguez.”
“That chokes me up a little bit. For me, there were no parameters. I didn’t let being Latin or being a minority, especially so many years ago, get in the way. So to hear someone like Willy who is such a visionary, such a trailblazer, say something like that would be another milestone in my career,” he said.
Reflecting on the fashion industry now versus then, Rodriguez got wistful.
“COVID was so disruptive to everyone…in terms of clothing and [moving to] online shopping,” he said. “For me, it’s always been about the touch and the fit and the fabric. And what I noticed was so much of what I consider style, quality and craft was gone, and it became much more about what looked good on social media or on a screen.”
That said, he knows there are customers out there for what he is doing now and he has relaunched his business in a more quiet way, catering to private clients so far, apart from the runway schedule and retail pressures for so much product.
“It’s about presenting something when it’s right, it’s cohesive, than banging out five collections a year. And it’s really been amazing to have all of these incredible fabric mills say…we’re so happy that you’re back. They said they really missed working with me and seeing what I did with their fabrics. And that was one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever gotten.”
He’s excited to be getting back to the work of sketching, designing and bringing something to life.
“I had a conversation recently about Armani,” he said, commenting on the 90-year-old designer’s spectacular New York runway show last month.
“He was a god to me, to all of us, back in the day. And I remember when I discovered that he invented different types of interfacing to make those jackets hang like that. That kind of craft, that kind of beauty, is rare and unique and brilliant. He invented those things, and only his jackets need those things, and that’s why he changed the way people dress. And few designers get to say that….And those are the designers that I admire,” said Rodriguez. “I want that. I think we need more of that, more joy in the craft. That’s resilience, staying true to that vision.”
