This story was originally published on March 25, 1992.
NEW YORK — Victor Alfaro. Who? On the evening of April 7, the 28-year-old designer from Chihuahua, Mexico, aims to answer that question when he unveils his first sportswear collection. He’s determined to take the New York fashion scene by storm, and his name is already making the rounds around town.
Alfaro has cast supermodels Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Yasmeen Ghauri, Karen Mulder and Tatjana Patitz for his 7 p.m. show at Webster Hall (the old Ritz nightclub on East 11th Street). Kevyn Aucoin will do makeup and Kevin Mancuso will do hair.
“The energy has to be on the same level as the clothes,” Alfaro said recently, previewing his high-voltage designs, which range from long mohair coats in bright yellow and pink with hot pink linings to chaps made of lace or faux python pulled over skintight catsuits.
His message is clear: “Sexy and very body-hugging,” in the style of Azzedine Alaïa, the designer he most admires. “But,” said Alfaro, “I use a wider range of fabrics.”
Eight years ago, Alfaro – an identical twin and one of six children of a surgeon and artist – left Mexico to study communications at the University of Texas at El Paso. A few years later, his love of fashion took him to New York and to FIT. After graduating in 1986, he apprenticed with Mary Ann Restivo and joined Joseph Abboud in 1989 when he was about to launch his women’s collection.
From his West Village apartment, the young designer also opened a small custom-tailored clothing store. “I dress the ladies from uptown, but they’re not names you’d recognize,” Alfaro said. But those designs caught the attention of Cosmopolitan, which has already given him two covers and reportedly has three more on the way.
Now he is ready to conquer the designer sportswear market. With the support of his family and many friends, he has hit the ground running.
“It’s a mix,” he said of his fall collection, “American sportswear with a European eye for quality and a Latin American sense of color. I believe in sexy, beautiful, wearable clothes for women who want to stand out from the crowd.”
“It’s street or club wear made from luxurious fabrics,” said the designer, adding that he gets his inspiration on Saturday nights at the Sound Factory, a New York club.
“It’s all very uninhibited. And my clothes are meant to take luxury to the extreme.”
Research by Tonya Blazio-Licorish
