ADOLFO: INTERNATIONAL HIGH SOCIETY DESIGNER

By: GLADYS RODRIGUEZ-DOD
EXCLUSIVELY FOR REX FABRICS

Adolfo Sardina is born on February 15, 1933, in Cardenas, province of Matanzas, Cuba, to a well-off family.  He is raised by an aunt, because his mother dies when he is born, and she becomes a great influence in his life.  Although everyone expected him to become an attorney, the family’s favorite career, during a trip to Paris with his aunt, he meets Coco Chanel, and his interest for the fashion industry begins.  He learns everything he could from Maria Borrero, a Cuban designer who had worked with Paul Poiret and Jean Patou.  He does not attend university, and he moves to New York in search of this dream.  His career as hatter begins, but in 1951 he moves to Paris and works with Cristobal Balenciaga.  Another designer who would excel years later is Emanuel Ungaro, who also forms a part of the team of this same maison during that time.  In 1953 he transfers over to Chanel house.  It is there that he falls in love with the embroidered dresses that Mamoiselle imposes in the Paris of that time.  He returns to New York, and here he becomes the designer of the Emme signature hats, winning his first Coty Award in 1955.  From the opinion that if you are able to design a hat, you can design anything, he begins to create party dresses for his customers, among them Gloria Vanderbilt.  His first cocktail dress in black lace is for the Duchess of Windsor.

Although his clothes are dramatic, very colorful and unexpected well-cut, they are very well liked and he is drenched with new customers.  And he continues to search for his niche in the world of fashion until he finds it.

Through the assistance of his friend and also designer Bill Blass, he opens his business in 1962 with ten thousand dollars that he lends him.  Six months later he had already paid off his debt.  The rest is history.  His business flourishes and very soon he is designing men’s clothes, glasses, shirts, and at last, he launches his perfume.  In 1969, he wins his second Coty Award for his contribution to design.

He begins to design a line of linen guayaberas for Supreme International, company of the also Cuban George Feldenkreis, with great success, which are exported to other Latin American countries, and they become a great success because of their excellence.  He is drenched by new licenses and he continues to expand his business, to the extent of even creating a line for women of big sizes.

He is inspired on the Chanel embroidered dresses for his sports fashion.  It is at the time that this company has lost luster and since he was always innovative, he puts together the embroidered jackets with silk blouses and skirts as an alternative, creating a more young, cool and modern style.  Years later he would comment: “I know that Karl Lagerfeld things that he imposed the Chanel jacket with silk pieces, but I have been doing it for many years.”

Betsy Bloomingdale introduces him to Nancy Reagan, and from that moment, she becomes a loyal customer, and during her eight years at the White House, she wears his designs with great chic.  When she decides that the Cuban artist Pedro Menocal make her a picture, she puts in his hands her wardrobe.  Pedro looked at the outfits until he found a red design with a jacket embroidered in gold...a design of Adolfo that the First Lady approved.  Days later he realized that Adolfo was no other than the cousin of his first cousins, the Sardina-Menocal.  When Adolfo sent him a note thanking him for his election, he signed it as his new cousin!

Other loyal customers of Adolfo were Pat Buckley, Nan Kempner, Jean Tailer, C.Z. Guest and even the actress Marlo Thomas.  But his fame extends to other countries, and he dresses the most elegant women in the world.

He never loses his soft, almost humble manner, and for example, in his fashion shows, first at the St. Regency and later at the Plaza, it was common to watch in magnificent seats some of the women who reigned in the Cuban society, but that now as exiled women could not buy his designs, yet he never forgot them.

I personally knew him well.  Pleasant, with a kind word for everyone, something strange in the world of fashion.  Adolfo was like an oasis in a desert.  One of his anecdotes that I will never forget is when he would prepare a trip to Milan to watch the fashion shows, where he would try to introduce a new magazine, after abandoning Nazaar in Spanish, and I passed by his studio for a fitting, and what was my surprise when, as I was leaving, Elizabeth, his secretary for many years gave me a bag with the message that Adolfo wanted me to open at home.  Inside, I discovered a woman’s suit in emerald green that I had previously praised, together with a white satin blouse, a cocktail dress and a silk set with its embroidered jacket, with the warning of having to wear it during my trip.  He was always a gentleman and a good friend.

In 1993, he surprised all of us when he decided to close his studio and dedicate himself to his licenses which covered an endless number of his products.  The years traveling the country with his collection had been intense, and now it was time to take things more at ease.  Needless to mention that all of us, his customers, would run to buy everything imaginable.  Still today, so many years later, I keep with care many garments created by him.  And they have exceeded the passage of time.  His jackets with the matching bags continue to exist, and his extravagant, sophisticated, glamorous evening designs possess the same allure today as yesterday.  But, isn’t it this what separates the ephemeral designers of each season?  “Fashion should be revolutionary, but always with good taste”.  He never got tired of saying, “How true!  In the complex world of design, his words are an eco of his vision.

And for those of us who were born in that Island of Cuba, not only his achievements which expanded through the five points of the world are a pride for us, but also that he never lost his essence of being Cuban.  And he made this a reality in his creations.  Bravo, Adolfo!

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