Feminine Fashion Returns: Secrets of Rodarte Founders Who Knew nothing about the fashion industry, but changed it

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

While irony and minimalism reigned in high fashion, the two sisters from California created delicate images reminiscent of the pre-Raphaelite muses and princesses from the 18th century. The founders of the Rodarte brand never learned how to make clothes, but they won the catwalks and the hearts of Hollywood stars.

Kate and Laura Mullivy, the weather sisters, were born into a family of an artist and a scientist. Their grandmother was an opera singer. As a child, Kate enthusiastically drew her stage costumes and told everyone that she dreamed of becoming a clothing designer - but in the 80s it never occurred to anyone that a girl from the provincial Californian town of Aptos could become a star in the fashion horizon.

Only Sister Laura understood Kate. Together they sewed clothes for their dolls and, like many girls of those years, drew outfits for paper "models". And they just adored films about vampires and did not take their eyes off the screen, fascinated by ancient lace, decayed velvet and the beautiful pale faces of sinister creatures. This combination of charming fragility and intimidating power will later become key in the images of their collections.

The girls entered the University of Berkeley. Kate decided to study art history of the XIX-XX centuries, and Laura first thought about a career as a biologist, and then transferred to the literary department. But a career in art history seemed to them like a life in prison. The sisters returned home and watched films for a whole year. They planned a trip to Italy, towards a new life - but did not go anywhere. And somehow quite spontaneously, in the kitchen in their parents' house, they invented and sewed ten things that were completely different from what fashion designers were creating at that time.

Thus began the path of the Mallivi sisters in the fashion world. To create the first full collection and go to New York Fashion Week, the girls sold collectible, rare audio recordings of rock bands that belonged to their father - of course, with his consent, but the memory of this still saddens Kate a little.

So, the sisters set off to conquer New York - with seven dresses and three coats (which were almost stolen along the way - Mullivy had never been to New York and were not ready for the harsh reality of the metropolis). They didn't know anyone from the fashion world. Kate made paper dolls, dressed them in miniature copies of outfits from the first collection and sent them to fashion magazines. Such a strange advertisement attracted the attention of Women’s Wear Daily, and soon the sisters received a call from the representative of the “great and terrible” Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of American Vogue! Kate and Laura still don’t understand how it came about, what they noticed at such a high level. "We could only pay the models with chocolate!" - Kate recalls with a laugh in her interviews. But the sisters' naivety gave their work some kind of special freshness, made them stand out against the background of the fashion business sharks. Wintour gave them advice on the development of the brand, co-owner of the Colette department store Sarah Lefebvre invited the sisters to display their dresses in store windows during Haute Couture Fashion Week, and it started.

Now the Rodarte brand (the sisters named their creation after their mother, Rodarte is her maiden name) is sold in forty stores around the world. They have won several significant fashion awards. Rodarte is the first fashion brand to receive the National Arts Award from Americans for the Arts. At the same time, the sisters do not play by the rules of the industry, do not follow trends, but create them, do not conduct market analysis, calmly skip high-profile events and remain independent of large investors at those moments when large fashion houses sell their shares. Many Hollywood stars are in love with their romantic dresses. Even Michelle Obama couldn't resist the brand's theatrical femininity.

And their main fan is Natalie Portman, who recommended the sisters to Darren Aronofsky. This is how thriller lovers themselves became part of the film industry - the dark plot of "Black Swan" perfectly matched their creative credo. The granddaughters of the opera singer, Mullivy also worked on costumes for opera productions.

Ruffles and frills, twinkling stars in the hair, hand-made embroidery, quivering silk and glossy leather … It takes hundreds of hours of work to create each model. Now Mallivi, of course, do not do everything themselves - they have a staff of unique craftswomen and craftsmen. It was Rodarte that became the trend towards neo-romanticism, which has now captured the mass market.

The Mullivy sisters brought femininity back into fashion - not one that is designed to please the eye of a man, but one that allows women to unleash their creativity.

Keith Mullivy says that today there are no more than twenty percent of women designers in the fashion industry, and is proud that Rodarte became one of the first famous brands headed by women in the 2000s. The sisters recently launched an inclusive clothing line from US size 0 to 40. Famous models and music performers of large sizes took part in the advertising of the collection. In 2019, the National Museum of Women's Art presented a retrospective of the Rodarte collections as part of the world's feminist heritage.