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"  Until recently, Rosie Assoulin was a striking woman with hair tumbling to her waist; nowadays, she&amp;#039;s a striking woman with a fashionable chop. Call it the &amp;quot;Bernice Bobs Her Hair&amp;quot; effect. &amp;quot;I cut it, and then I started this collection,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t think I needed that security blanket anymore.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;This collection&amp;quot; would be her namesake line of elegant separates that evince a certain ageless simplicity. Mind you, the 28-year-old is hardly a fashion newcomer. She started pitching in for her future mother-in-law, costume jeweler Roxanne Assoulin\u2014&amp;quot;I was free labor,&amp;quot; she jokes\u2014at age 14. Later, she dropped out of FIT to take an internship with Mr. Seventh Avenue himself, Oscar de la Renta. &amp;quot;It was amazing to see the level of craftsmanship\u2014a thousand bias-cut strips of organdy being hand-applied to a gown,&amp;quot; Assoulin says. At de la Renta, she picked up &amp;quot;a quality bug. I got bitten by the idea of luxury: silk tulle and pin tucking and these very subtle techniques.&amp;quot; Internships at Adam Lippes, Brian Reyes, and Lanvin in Paris followed; meanwhile, Assoulin quietly gathered magazine tear sheets and pictures she found online, assembling a trove of some 30,000 images. &amp;quot;I like to watch a lot before I jump in,&amp;quot; the designer says, &amp;quot;as evidenced from my decade of being around this before actually feeling like I could jump in!&amp;quot; But ultimately, she says, &amp;quot;I had to do this. I couldn&amp;#039;t not do it.&amp;quot; So Assoulin set aside her tear sheets and put her era-spanning research to good use. &amp;quot;[There&amp;#039;s] something about lengths of fabric, something about sashes, something about a tie sarong. Those are gestures I found in every decade,&amp;quot; she says. The years of study come across in her lineup: For example, &amp;quot;if you&amp;#039;re a business lady,&amp;quot; there are a bold red double-breasted suit with a waist tie and floor-skimming &amp;quot;mall pants&amp;quot; that, in Italian cotton faille, are a far cry from their raver cousins. Brushing a hand across a circle-seamed top, she jokes, &amp;quot;We really sculpted the shit out of that thing, excuse my language.&amp;quot; The pieces retail for $600 to $7,000; the line, which debuts for resort, is sold at Fivestory in New York City and on Moda Operandi. Pointing to her baggy sweats, Assoulin says, &amp;quot;I love that old-world, couture silhouette, but my life is very sweatpants. If I can make a ball gown feel like a pair of sweatpants, then I have succeeded.&amp;quot; Another goal: dressing women of a certain age. &amp;quot;I always loved women. Girls are amazing, but you could put them in a tank top and call it a day.&amp;quot; Speaking of which, there&amp;#039;s a sexagenarian 2016 prospect in her sights: &amp;quot;Oh, Hillary would look damn good in that red suit.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/a13874/rosie-assoulin-profile/>