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"  &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s very strange; there&amp;#039;s a sort of finality when you think of the word retrospective,&amp;quot; says Ralph Rucci on the eve of his \u2014 what else? \u2014 retrospective at the Museum at FIT in New York. &amp;quot;A while ago, I got the idea that there is no such thing as an incline from collection to collection, or my career from year to year, but that it&amp;#039;s a flat line. Hopefully, over time, you improve and become a bit more refined, and you work out the same concepts that you&amp;#039;ve always tried to perfect. But the idea of a retrospective,&amp;quot; he says, shaking his head, &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s a view of the flat line of the past 25 years.&amp;quot;  SEE LOOKBOOK: RALPH RUCCI He may see a straight line now, but looking back at Rucci&amp;#039;s journey \u2014 from his first formal show at New York&amp;#039;s Westbury Hotel in 1981 to the salons at the H\u00F4tel Ritz in Paris, where he debuted his fall couture collection in 2004 \u2014 one can&amp;#039;t ignore the peaks and valleys along the way. &amp;quot;There has been a great deal of struggle, but there&amp;#039;s a clarity today,&amp;quot; says Rucci. His refusal to waver from his strict design aesthetic, which conjures the clean lines of Crist\u00F3bal Balenciaga and the understated opulence of James Galanos, has garnered him a fan club including such women with discerning taste as Deeda Blair and Tatiana Sorokko. &amp;quot;The fact that my work is appreciated today allows me to be totally aware of my humility, because it&amp;#039;s all borrowed.&amp;quot; Ralph Rucci: The Art of Weightlessness (Yale University Press), by Valerie Steele, Patricia Mears, and Clare Sauro, is available now. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/a108/celebrating-ralph-rucci-0207/>