Designing Man

Latin Trade, Nov, 2000 by Claire Poole

Rogelio Velasco turns a love for dressmaking into one of New York's hottest labels.

AT 13, ROGELLO VELASCO BEGAN SEWING COSTUMES FOR HIS sisters, who danced in the ballet folklorico in their hometown of Mexicali in northern Mexico. By the time he was 18, he was designing wedding dresses. At 25, he entered the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California to study civil engineering. But he was unhappy "All I wanted to do was sew women's gowns," he says.

Velasco eventually traded his slide rule and graph paper for needle and thread. Women, from socialites and royalty to movie stars, are glad he did. The 39-year-old forms part of the two-member design team of Velasco Andersson, one of the hottest dressmakers in New York City.

Velasco Andersson's designs, unveiled earlier this year, have already been featured on the cover of Cosmopolitan and in the pages of Harper's Bazaar. Celebrity fans include Manhattan socialites Lauren du Pont and Aerin Lauder, actress Elisabeth Shue and Queen Rania of Jordan, who ordered four of Velasco's gowns on a trip to New York in April. "Young Manhattan society's favorite new label" is how a gushing Vogue magazine described Velasco Andersson in its February issue.

The designs are popular because of their elegant simplicity. Velasco uses mostly silk, satin and crepe, fashioning the fabrics into gowns with clean lines and few adornments. He relies on subtle colors like lavender, pink and silver; some fashion watchers have compared his designs to ice sculptures. The only detail that jumps out are the curves, aimed at enhancing the female body.

Muchacho from Mexicali. Velasco's dresses may be simple, but they aren't cheap: His ball gowns range from US$1,300 to $4,000, his wedding dresses from $6,000 to $7,000.

While basking in the glow of attention, Velasco remains grounded. In his 10th-floor studio and showroom in the heart of New York's bustling garment district, he moves around the work space gracefully, like the dancer he once was with his sisters in the ballet folklorico. Wearing his long dark hair in a ponytail and clad in black jeans, black sandals and a long-sleeved white shirt over a white t-shirt, he smiles easily but seems clearly uncomfortable being interviewed. "I feel like I am the focus of an investigative report," he says.

Once at ease, Velasco explains how New York's notoriously fussy couture society has been captivated by a muchacho from Mexicali.

After quitting engineering school, Velasco enrolled at Altos de Chavon, a respected fashion design school in the Dominican Republic (home to another famous Latin American designer, Oscar de la Renta). He studied there two years before winning a scholarship to Parsons School of Design in New York, where he finished his bachelor's degree in fashion design. At first, he turned down the scholarship because he couldn't afford the high cost of living in Manhattan. But the school gave him a scholarship to cover that, too.

Ego patterns. When he graduated from Parsons, Velasco went to work for French designer Rossette Harris, who taught him to drape and alter women's clothes. Six months later, he was hired by famous designer Isaac Mizrahi, where he worked for 11 years, cutting and making patterns and fitting such celebrities as Liza Minelli and actor Tom Hanks' wife, actress Rita Wilson.

It wasn't easy fitting some of the celebrities. "It was the egos," he confides. "But I felt very comfortable. It came to me easily, because I knew how to drape."

While at Mizrahi, Velasco worked side by side with Annica Andersson, a Miami native who had graduated from Parsons a year before him. In 1998, however, Mizrahi dosed his business to pursue an acting career, and Velasco and Andersson found themselves unemployed.

"Oh my God, what now?" the Mexican designer remembers thinking. Andersson carved out a niche as a freelance designer, while Velasco went to work for designer Vera Wang. But the former co-workers stayed in touch and, after meeting for coffee in July 1999, they bumped into another Mizrahi alumnus, Greg Mills, who had launched his own business representing other designers. The pair told Mills how unhappy they were, and he convinced them to start a line of their own, with him representing them. "I thought, 'Either I do it now--or never,'" Velasco says.

Mills put up $50,000, Velasco threw in $15,000 and Andersson contributed her hard work as equity. Their first dress design came simply by draping fabric on a model. That gown joined 14 featured in their first collection, which was completed at the end of 1999.

Their big break came when Elizabeth Saltzman, fashion director of Vanity Fair magazine, saw the beginnings of the new line. She praised it to other fashion editors as well as to William Norwich, a well-read New York Observer columnist, who profiled the designing duo. The Velasco Andersson line was soon picked up by several stores, including Bergdorf Goodman (which gave it three windows on Fifth Avenue) and Jeffrey's. Barneys New York commissioned the two to make wedding dresses for its new bridal shop.