NEW YORK — Pilar Rossi is celebrating her signature Madison Avenue store’s 20th year, and getting back into the wholesale business this fall.
Rossi has developed a following for her eveningwear and ready-to-wear by catering to the women who have helped turn her store into what she described as a “multimillion-dollar” operation, without offering specifics.
In the economic downturn that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, Rossi focused everything on her boutique at 784 Madison Avenue and shunned her wholesale business. However, some specialty buyers in recent months asked her to get back into wholesale and she complied.
“I really missed the action and helping the stores,” she said. “It’s also exciting having my clothes all over the U.S., so I decided to go back into it.”
Wholesale volume this year should total $1 million, she said. Forty specialty stores have already picked up the collection for fall and her aim is to have 100 by the end of 2007.
The 70-piece fall collection includes eveningwear wholesaling for $800 to $3,000, suits for $450 to $1,500 and short dresses priced between $350 and $800. Fall bestsellers include a $450 black pleated chiffon dress, a $790 black-and-white column gown with a draped bust and a $550 double-breasted faille suit, Rossi said. The collection is shown at the designer’s showroom at 526 Seventh Avenue, where Zina Mann has been hired as wholesale manager to oversee the division.
“The wholesale is going really well,” Rossi said. “I didn’t expect such a quick response. I thought it would take a little bit to build the [wholesale] business back. If you give your customers what they need, they will keep coming back and coming back. Now I have the daughters of these ladies coming to see me.”
Born in Barcelona and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Rossi started designing clothes for her Brazilian friends as a hobby. In the Eighties, she and her husband, Ronald, who also is her business partner, opened stores in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Monte Carlo, Bal Harbour, Fla., and New York. In 1987, after four years of living in London, they relocated to Manhattan to focus on that store and closed the others. Rossi’s first store was located on the southeast corner of 64th Street and Madison Avenue, where a David Yurman shop now stands.
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In 2001, she moved her boutique to its current location even though it was half the size. Rossi said she thought it would be a temporary space until she and her husband found a larger one.
“It was much smaller, but it was more exclusive,” she said. “All my customers said, ‘This is perfect. Just stay here.'”
Her high-profile clients include Deborah Norville, who wore the designer’s dresses to this year’s Oscars and Golden Globes, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who is wearing Rossi’s clothes for her book tour promoting “Failing America’s Faithful.”
“Deborah Norville is one of my favorite clients,” Rossi said. “She is typical of the Pilar Rossi woman that I often envision: her persona, her work ethic and her natural, refined style.”
In December, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani knocked on the store window before it had opened because he wanted to buy the red dress in the window for his wife Judith. The following day, she turned up to try it on and the deed was done.
“Everything we do is about service,” Rossi said. “I give my customer what she really needs. There is also some exclusivity so she knows she will be the only one wearing the dress. I will change a sleeve length or color. It’s about working with them one-on-one.”
Last year, Rossi and her husband became U.S. citizens. The designer said she understood when she opened her Madison Avenue store that New York would not be a temporary home.
“When we decided to come here, I knew we were going to be here for a long time,” she added.