One of Narciso Rodriguez’s prized possessions is a pair of Victorian gloves, made painstakingly by hand. It’s a reminder that, as he says, “Good things last, and they’re meaningful.”
Creating those lasting, meaningful things is Rodriguez’s North Star right now. When he founded his namesake brand in 1997, he quickly became a boldface fashion name. At the outset of COVID, he shuttered his label, though he continued to design for private clients and run his thriving fragrance business with Shiseido. In the interim, he underwent what he calls “my personal reinvention,” redrawing the lines of his career. That meant carving out a smaller, more focused existence that allows him to stop work every day at 2:45 to pick up his seven-year-old twins from their school—conveniently located just around the corner…
