Interview With Rick Pallack

MJ: I noticed pictures of you with Sylvester Stallone, Michael Jackson, President Raegan. Why ar you in pictures with all of these people?
RP: Well, I've been blessed with getting to work with a lot of these people and dress a lot of them, and it's nice t o have for the scrapbook.

MJ: Who are some of your best known clients that we would know?

RP: Well, over the years I've had the privilege of dressing just about all the well-dressed men in Hollywood, everybody from working with Sylvester Stallone to Arsenio Hall, to Burt Reynolds, Senator Edward Kennedy, Michael Jackson, and on and on, just most all of then we've dressed at one time or another for some of their movies or television shows.

MJ: Take us through the process. I'm a famous actof, or I'm just a regular person. I come to you. What happens from there?

RP: What I do is find out exactly what you're looking for, what your needs are, whether it's for your own personal wardrobe or for a television show or a movie, what time of year it is. If you're shooting for a movie, what the character is, and the look that we want to try to do, and then we analyze what's going to look best on you. Abnd then what I do is start selecting and putting together outfits, lay them out on the tables just ilke I did for yourself, and put together suggestios and try some things on, and just put it altogether until we get the right look for the person that we're wardrobing.

MJ: Now, your clients actually come in to your store and go through this with you, or do they send somebody ahead to work this out?

RP: We've had everything. We've had many of these famous celebrities in our store, everyone from Sylvester Stallone, to George Hamilton, to Sugar Ray Leonard, to Senator Edward Kennedy, have come in personally shopping. But many times I work with bringing clothes to them or working with a costumer or wardrober that is actually on the set everyday working with them on the movie.

MJ: Can you describe your stlyle, the type of wardrobes you're attracted to, or that elements of style that fo into what you do?

RP: Yes. Well, for one, I carry a very vast selection, so I can dress like recently we dressed in Aaron Spelling series, and in the '80's I dressed a lot for Dynasty, and I can dress six or ten different characters for a television show, and they each have their own individual look where they don't look like they came out of the same store. So, one, I carry a very big variety and a big variey of sizes also, so whether it's for very small people or very large people we can outfit them all. And then the look is really an updated, classic, elegant look. It's sophisticated, it's international, it's elegant, but with my own interpretation in style and taste of putting it together.

MJ: Rick, how did you get into this business?

RP: I started working in a store when I was ten years old on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and worked my way up and was selling when I was twelve. And then the started with $200 and started selling clothes for my friends when I was about fourteen, and then from the trunk of my car when I was sixteen. It's just one of those American entrepreneur stories where I sold out an apartment when I was nineteen years old until I was twenty-four. And then when I was twenty-four I opened the current store that we have today over twelve years ago, and it just grew.

MJ: What advice would you have for people who would like to be in the line of work you're in?

RP: To follow your dream, follow your heart and to stay with it, and no matter what obstacles come up, to stick with it and to work hard and to find that niche within yourself and the spart within you of creativity that you have that is unique unto yourself, and to just follow that and just keep pursuing your dream.

MJL What first attracted you to clothing and designing and retailing?

RP: Well, you know, the designing part just kind of evolved over the years 'cause in my store when I was selling I could'nt find designs and products that I always liked or I coulnd't find the right tie to go with a shirt of the right sweater with a coat, so I began to kind of design my own elements to get all the right components to outfit my clients. And as time went on, I just kept designing more and more, and those the things that my clients liked the best, so that's when I went into designing 100% of my collection.

MJ: Now, here in the U.S., young boys want to grow up to be baseball players or firemen. What did you want to grow up to be when you were a young boy?

RP: You know, I wasn't sure, I always wanted to be ab entrepreneur and a businessman and to be successful, and I really didn't know what my path in life was, and this just kind of developed and then exploded, and I never really thought in my twenties that this was it for me. But it just developed, and then I enjoyed it more and more, and this is where I am.

MJ: Is style something you take home with you, or do you ever wear ripped jeans and a T-dhirt with holes in it?

RK: I have warm-up suits that I kick around the house in, but they are cashmere. And it isnic to always be in stule and comrfort and elegance, but I wear jeans too.

MJL Now, there's a whole Seattle phenomenon - music and a certain look of trying to dress down, wearing clothes with holes in them, etc. What do you think of that?

RP: I think everything has its appropriate look, and for young kids that's great, or teenagers, or people in their early twenties. And my look is really for the more sohpisticated man, and we have a lot of casual sportswear in my store. They don't have any holes in them, with the exception of buttonholes. And to wear looks ilke you have, like nice sweaters, sport jackets, and sweaters, and elegant sportswear I think is appropriate. I think everything has its place in life.

MJL What would be some famous movies scenes that we would have seen that you hav eperhaps outfitted the star?

RP: Well, probably the most famous films is doing some of the wardribe for Sylvester Stallone for the Rocky movies, and not the begining because in the begining he was poor. But as you got into the Rocky mories of the II, III, and IV, where he was well dressed, a lot of that was my wardrobe. And then in Rocky V, the begining of the movie they used some of my wardrobem, but then he lost it all. So later on in the movie, he went back to his original Rocky I clothes. So, that's probably the most famous movie that has used our wardrobe.

MJ: So once he had to go back to his roors, he started to dress down again.

RP: Absolutely. He went back to his orginal Rocky 1 Philadelphia clothes of the leather jacket and the gloves with the fingers cut out and the cap.

MJ: Any others that come into mind?

RP: Oh, there's so many we've dressed, I mean, the movie from "The Firm", which got a lot of the wardrobe from us, to I mean hundreds of movies over the years. We've dressed everyone from Tom Cruise to Tom Selleck and, you know, everybody in between. So just most all of then, except period pieces. We don't do period pieces. We just do contemporary, modern-day features.

MJ: Now you also outfit quite a number of television performers. What are some examples of that, and how does your business interact with television shows?

RPL Well, very much because, you know, everything is based here in Los Angeles so that the television wardrobers come in our store every day, and we've dressed everywhere from a lot of the men in "Dynasty" and "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest" to "Growing Pains" and "Who's the Boss?" to "L.A. Law", "Moonlighting", all the daytime soaps - "General Hospital", "Days of our Lives" - I mean just about every televisio show where there's well dressed men, on the Aaron Spelling series "90210 Models Inc." the new series, they've bought a lot of clothes from us. In the series "Burke's Law", Aaron asked me to dress the lead character, Gene Berry, for that series when he brought it back. So you can flip the channels, and you're going to see our wardrobe on just about all of them.

MJ: How does the process work? Do they give you a budget, or do you complimentarily outfit their starts, or is it a little bit of each?

RP: Basically, they do give us a look at what they're working with. Many times they give us a budget, sometimes they give us free reins and say, "We just want to be dressed and be the best-dressed men in television. That's why we'ved come to you." And I'll put together a whole wardrobe for them. So it's all different. Some have budgets, some are just open budgets, and then there are ones that we dress for screen credit like "CNN Showbiz Today" or "HBO World Entertainment News" or shows for MTV, to yourself for shows that you do.

MJL How much of your business is movie or televisio or entertainment-related?

RP: We do a tremendous amount in it, but it's really only about 10 percent of our businessman who comes in to buy his everyday wardrobe from us.

MJ: Rick, what is the best part of what you do and the worst part, the part that you least like about your line of work?

RP: Well, the creative part of the designing the clothes and starting from the threads and the fabric in a mill in Italy, and from this big picking and having a whole collectio made from fabrics and seeing it come in and seeing the people accept it an like it very much, and getting the person, work with people wardrobing them - that's what I absolutely love. The behind-the-scenes of running a business it eh part ath I don't enjoy as much but, you know, it's just neccessary.

MJ: What ar you plans for the future in terms of the business and maybe even personally?

RP: Because of the success of the store, we do the highest sales per square foot of any men's clothing store in the world, and for a decade we've held the world's record. And because of the unique concept of our complete wardrobing and coordination systen, we've had many companies come to us who want to open Rick Pallack sotres throughout the country and in Europe and in the Far East in different countries, and to do mail order catalog. People have asked me to design products to sell on the shopping channels in America. And so now I'm discussing that with these different companies who have come to me, and I think in the future there will definitely be a chain of Rick Pallack stores throughout the world with complete wardobe coordinatio technique, where I can dress people throughout the world. Just ilke I dressed you today, I'll be able tp dress millions of people throughout the planet and have a mail-order catalog with the celebrities wearing my outfits, and people would be able to select outfits completely and mix and match and interchange what goes togehter through our shopping catalog.

MJ: Take us through the process of your designing some clothing and then getting it manufactured and retailed. It begins where - here in your design studio?

RP: Yes, and that's really the fun part. What I'll do is if I don't have time to go to Europe, I have an agent that sends me all the fabric samples from the mills in Biella, Italy. And I'll go through little fabrics about this big that is going to become a suit of a sport coat, and I'll go through thousands of them, and my house will be filled with them. And I'll narrow down my collection to the ones that I like the best, and many times I'll change them. I'll take a fabric such as the suit I have on, and I'll give them a thread of brown and say, "Weave brown in here to make it a little bit more unusual, a little bit more elegant." And so I'll have the fabrics, and I'll look through thousands to find six perfect shirts to go with the suit. And if I can't find the perfect ones, I'll color my own, and then I'll do the same thing with silks for neckwear. And I literally neckwear through hundreds of thousands, and by the time the suit comes in I'll make sure that I have the six perfect shirts, at least six perfect ties to go with it, and I may color my own ties. I select the buttons, to the lining, to the perfect cuff lins, down to the shoes and the socks and every component to fo with the ourfit. And then I have boards in my home where I'll take the suit fabrics and I'll wind up with shirts and ties that fo with it. So by the time everything comes in my sotre, which is six months to a year later, it will all be pre-coordinated perfectly.

MJ: Now do you visit the mills of the places where they manufacture?

RP: I have, but basically I have it set up now because I really need to be here in Los Angeles to be able to do the shows and the movies and to look after the store here. So basically I have all the factories set up throughout the world, mostly in Italy, some are in Germany, Switzerland, England, France, and a little bit in Scotland, where the projucts are manufactured, So I have agents that work for me, that follow through to make sure everything gets manufactured to my specifications, and they send me samples. So basically right here in my design studio and my offices I can design a shoe, and they send me the samples, the prototype from Italy, I'll make any correctios or changes or approvals, and three or four months later they come in our door.

MJ: Now' I've also heard a rumor that working for you is a great place to be discovered as a talent. And there are some people that have worked for you and have gone on in acting careers?

RP: On both, there's been a lot of people in the fashion industry who have worked here and have gotten a great educatio and gone onto... There's a young man who worked for me about seven years who I', very proud of that is a jeans maufacturer today. Other ones who have gone on into the design field. And yes, there are movie stars who have gotten discovered. John Lovitz was my first employee, and he was a stock boy for about six years for me, and a dear friend, and got discovered in the store and got his first part from here ins "Saturday Night Live" and went on to be a movie star who we still get to dress. He was just in "City Slickers 2". I;m very proud of John.

MJL So if I was to advise a young person who would like to be a movie star I would tell them to come and work for you?

RPL Many hav gotten discovered here. This is the place.

MJ: A lot of producers and directors and different people involved in the movie business come here?

RP: Well, they all shop here so it's funny because when we do place an ad for sales people I get so many resumes from actors and writers that want to come work here. And it's funny because on Satudays and weekends when the store is really busy every top agent and top producer in town is in here visiting with one another and running into one another. And there was a very famous delicatessen, Swabs, Swabs in the sixties, where everybody used to meed and hang out. I think Rick Pallack's is the plave in the nineties where everybody gets discovered.

MJ: You've also done quite a bit of TV programs like award programs.

RP: Yes

MJ: What kind of experiences have you had with that?

RP: Well, I've dressed everything from dressing stars for the Academy Music Awards shows, the Grammies, and that's a lot of fun. What we do it I design over a thousand different bow ties with different formal skirts and different tuxedo looks. And what we do is I make four of each in the limitedcollectio of the bow ties, and I only put out one of each around the Academy Awards time adn we document who gets it. So really a lt of work foes into ti to make sure everybody has their own individual look and that they all look different when they're up there in front of a billion people at the Academy awards.

MJ: Thanks you for joining us, Rick.

RP: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for visiting me today.