Interview

NR: So this is really a lifelong passion.

HB: A lifelong passion, yes. How old am I now . . . It’s been 30 years of collecting. These things do accumulate, even if you’re just buying one or two things a month. I’m afraid rather more now. My long-suffering parents had to spend family holidays going around the costume museums of Great Britain—one in Manchester, one in Bath, one at Castle Howard in Yorkshire . . . That’s how I wanted to spend my time.

NR: You have some of your collection in London and Paris, and obviously a huge amount here in New York. They’re so fragile. I know with the few things that I have, just to be conscious of bugs, to take very good care of them . . .

HB: That’s the stuff of my nightmares—I mean, bugs and dampness and all those things. Ask the Brooklyn Museum or the Met. Costumes and fashion are the most difficult things to store and the most demanding in terms of conservation.

NR: You dug out some of your favorites for the Interview shoot. What did you decide to put in the photograph?

HB: There’s this very unintentionally surreal Scaasi dress from 1959 that is composed of graduated bands of chopped ostrich feather in shades of lime and chartreuse ostrich. It’s an extraordinary dress. Actually, I put a little bit of wind on it, and it looked like a disturbingly green fur, not at all feathery—very odd. We also dressed a Lacroix piece from 1992, which is an impasto-embroidered bodice with pre-sleeves, and the skirt is a black organza, but it’s tufted by [Christophe] Lemarie with color-banded ostrich that’s black, candy-pink, and lime. It’s extraordinary Paris couture work. The two pieces together look wonderful. We had faille dresses: One was that rather rich, orange Givenchy dress with a floor-length overskirt and a short underskirt.

NR: Oh, I loved that dress. It was amazing.

HB: Yeah. The Agnes Moorehead dress.

NR: You must have a zillion requests from museums.

HB: It’s gotten to the point that I’m considering setting up a foundation. Obviously, I am thinking about things that would be appropriate for [“The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion”] at the Met this spring, because I have dresses that were worn by Marion Morehouse in the ’20s for Steichen photographs, and by Veruschka for Penn in ’60s pictures, and Sunny Harnett. One is constantly making those discoveries. Then I have things that Kate Moss and Linda Evangelista wore. When Linda dyed her hair red to accent it, Karl Lagerfeld created this vivid Lypsinka orange-Lurex Chanel couture suit for her. I think the idea of being able to lend things to museum shows and seeing them reach a wider public and seeing them mounted and displayed from different curators’ points of view is really an exceptionally rewarding part of having assembled this collection. But I’d certainly love to do a show and curate pieces in the way that I’ve assembled them, and made the connections in my mind.

Designer Narciso Rodriguez launched his own label in 1997. He was named the CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2002 and 2003. Set Design: Andrea Stanley/The Wall Group. Production Assistant: Jana Garvin. Special Thanks: The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology and The Space, Inc.