Ex-Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley had the fashion community on its toes last week with his shady excerpts from his upcoming memoir, The Chiffon Trenches. Talley touches on multiple people in the fashion industry, but most of the tea was focused on Anna Wintour, who he described as “immune to anyone other than the powerful and famous people who populate the pages of Vogue.”
American designer Ralph Rucci jumped into the shade room with a lengthy post of criticism about Anna Wintour on Instagram on Saturday (April 25, 2020). In his memoir, Talley’s critiques mainly focused on Wintour’s cold personality while Rucci challenged her credentials as a creative leader. Rucci compares Wintour to some of fashion’s most iconic editors, he wrote, “I will write about what I had to contend with concerning this very, very meaningless person who deeply knew that she had no substance to exist in the realms of [Carmel] Snow, [Diana] Vreeland, [Grace] Mirabella, [Eve] Orton and [June] Weir.”
Rucci is most likely referencing Condé Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse, who died in 2017, he writes, “She did not act alone, she had a diabolical man who assisted in the satanic plan.” Rucci ends his rant with, “It’s a severe injury to the brain to realize that we have tolerated this mediocrity in our metier for almost four decades.”
Rucci left his eponymous label in 2014. It is speculated that he was forced out by billionaire investors Nancy and Howard Marks, who purchased a majority investment in the label in 2013 and were said to be frustrated by Rucci’s unwillingness to make offerings more accessible.
In addition to his bespoke work, in 2016 Rucci launched RR331, a label whose last presentation was shown in Paris in July 2019. Rucci stands as among just a few American designers to be invited by France's Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture to show a haute couture collection.