They do now. When the New York ready-to-wear collections open next week, Tyler, an Australian by birth and a Californian by design, will be the hottest ticket in town. Six months after he debuted as design director of Anne Klein-to mostly mixed reviews-Tyler has won over the fashion elite. Who says bad press matters? Last month the Council of Fashion Designers of America gave him its new-talent award, making Tyler, at 46, the industry’s oldest rookie of the year. A few days later, as Saks Fifth Avenue launched the Anne Klein collection, a crush of trendies braved one of the winter’s worst snowstorms to drop $56,000 on hip Tyler threads. At last week’s Oscars, Tyler may have even crowded out Armani. Janet Jackson, for one, wore a beige Tyler pantsuit with a $400,000 necklace; Steven Spielberg’s mom, Leah Adler, wore a bronze Tyler jacket under a my-son-just-won-everything smile.
Why the turnaround? In part, it’s hope on a hanger. “Based on the early hype, he’s the best thing to come along on Seventh Avenue since Perry Ellis,” says Alan Millstein, editor of the Fashion Network Report, a retail newsletter. But it’s also his jackets. By most accounts, Tyler, who launched his own label seven years ago, makes some of the best jackets in the business. And many believe he’s brought that style-long silhouettes, luxurious fabrics, detailed finishing-to Anne Klein. Though his jackets are going bellybutton short for fall, spring is filled with his signature lean, curvy styles. Nevertheless, he insists Anne Klein will not knock off his separate Richard Tyler line, which he’ll continue producing. “With Richard Tyler, the collection is more of a fantasy, couture collection. Some of our jackets take three days to make. You can’t do that if you’re selling to 60 [stores] throughout the United States.”
There’s no shortage of people watching to see how he fares. Anne Klein is banking on Tyler to rejuvenate the estimated $300 million-a-year firm, which has foundered since Donna Karan left a decade ago. Seventh Avenue hopes he can spark an industry reeling from several seasons of recession and bad taste. As for Tyler himself, success could land him in the fashion stratosphere. He low-keys that: “When I took on Anne Klein, I wanted to take it into a new direction. We’re moving into the next century So I made a real effort to go after new customers as well as not alienate the old customer.” That would be a tough act for anyone. But Tyler, ensconced in his studio in downtown Los Angeles, exudes calm. With long, salt-and-pepper hair and a three-day stubble, he looks like an aging rock star. Underneath is a savvy businessman who’s balanced his life in New York and his life in L.A., where he has a new house and a new baby, Edward, as well as the Richard Tyler collection and a shop on Beverly Boulevard. It helps that Tyler and his wife and business partner, Lisa Trafficante, 37, do everything en famille, from finishing each other’s sentences to coast-to-coast trunk shows. They spend two weeks a month in New York, two in L.A., and Tyler thrives on the pressure though, as Lisa puts it, “I don’t know if he should add too much more to the load.”
If there’s a kid-in-the-candy-store quality to Tyler, he says it’s because he’s achieved his dream. Born in Sunshine, Australia, near Melbourne, he began sewing as a kid to help his mother, Mercia, a costumer. By 18, he had his own shop. Mercia gave him a sense of theater and an urge to make American designs. “I used to sit in bed with her and she would show me all these American catalogs. Before, I didn’t even know there were American designers because, in Australia, it’s all European.”
Tyler landed in L.A. in 1978 and began creating clothes for some of rock’s most flamboyant stars-Cher, Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, Elton John. In 1987, he met Lisa, then an aspiring actress, and within two months they’d launched a relationship and his Richard Tyler line, hoping to put pop-star flair into more marketable clothes. His businesses-outside Anne Klein-total about $7 million a year. Early on, what caught everyone’s attention was celebrities wearing his clothes. “That’s the age-old recipe for success in fashion: get the right people to wear your clothes,” says Patrick McCarthy, executive editor of Women’s Wear Daily. Among those who noticed were Anne Klein officials, who, by the early ’90s, were looking to replace designer Louis Dell’Olio, whose looks, many thought, had become too staid.
Eventually, though, the gotta-have-it-first frenzy will die down, and the question will be whether Tyler can sustain interest. Karl Lagerfeld made it look easy when he turned Chanel into the hottest label in the world. But the industry is littered with short-term wonders like Marc Jacobs, who took over Perry Ellis in 1989 amid enormous expectations and who left, ingloriously, last year. The first hurdle for Tyler will be how much of the collection ends up on the sale racks. “The test is when he hits Mid-America-do the doctor’s wife and the dentist’s wife in Indianapolis wind up buying it?” Millstein says. But if part of Tyler’s job is to create excitement for Anne Klein,. he’s already earned his paycheck.
