Narciso Rodriguez

A fashion studio's nature is controlled chaos—for Narciso Rodriguez in New York, architect Calvert Wright provided the control. If you're not actually walking down a red carpet while wearing a Narciso Rodriguez gown, you're probably in a limo on the way to the gala. The Rodriguez prototype woman has a boldface name, earns eight figures per movie, and never wears the same dress twice. Just think Sarah Jessica Parker, who sat in the front row at his recent New York show, or Salma Hayek, who paraded around the Frida premiere in a stunning pink Rodriguez frock.

Under the circumstances, one might expect Rodriguez's studio in New York to be glitzy. But one would be wrong. The 7,500-square-foot space, by architect Calvert Wright, is cool but calm, sharp but subdued. The statement is clear: Before the flashbulbs start popping, the business of fashion must be taken care of.

Wright was pleased to learn at the outset that Rodriguez was conversant in modern architecture. Note a conference room's industrial-style steel shelving, which holds books on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier alongside titles on Christian Dior and Coco Chanel. The overall environment is equally serious.

A product of 1100 Architect, Diller + Scofidio, and Rafael Viñoly Architects, Wright is serious, too. So much so that he named his firm Calvert Wright Architecture/Spatial Discipline. If that sounds like a holding cell for hooligan space-users, it is—in a sense. "Because of our name," he says with a grin, "some people expect us to come in with whips and chains."

What disciplines the Rodriguez studio is a series of freestanding plasterboard volumes. In addition to providing storage—the 81/2-foot-high espresso-brown slab in the reception area holds an archive of Rodriguez's collections since 1997—these structures divide offices, fitting rooms, and back-of-house production from main circulation routes as well as partitioning the offices from one another. "They're slabs in the Miesian sense," says Wright. Read more...