Kalman Ruttenstein, 69, Fashion Director At Bloomingdale’s, Nurtured Couturiers

Kalman Ruttenstein, who died yesterday at 69, was the longtime fashion director at Bloomingdale’s, as famed for his fizzy sense of promotion as for his eye for trends.Ruttenstein died of cancer at Mount Sinai Medical Center, according to a report on the Women’s Wear Daily Web site. The report quoted the president of Bloomingdale’s , Michale Gould, as saying, “He has been an integral part of what has made Bloomingdale’s different from all other stores.”Fond of linking displays at Bloomingdale’s to current films and other stylish cultural ephemera, he used themes based on films like “Hairspray,” “Moulin Rouge!,” and “Evita.” He had a special shop set up last October in honor of the film “Rent” and had the movie’s cast on hand for the ribbon cutting. He was as effusive in his personal life as he was about publicizing fashion; he once said he had seen the theatrical version of “Rent” 23 times.“Kal,” as he was universally known, was an eminence in the fashion industry and a key booster and occasional mentor to some of its most famous designers of recent decades, including Perry Ellis, Donna Karan, Isaac Mizrahi, Ralph Lauren, and more recently Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.Ruttenstein was born and raised in Buffalo, where his parents owned part interest in two women’s clothing stores. A graduate of Princeton and the Columbia Business School, he never envisioned himself carving out a niche in the retail industry. “I didn’t think working in a store was a career,” Rut tenstein told the San Francisco Chronicle. “My friends were all becoming doctors and lawyers.”Accompanying his mother on buying trips to New York City convinced him differently, though. He started in a training program at Lord & Taylor and cut his teeth in the fashion business picking out models for New York shows while taking in the latest couture on the runways of Paris. He became a vice president of Saks Fifth Avenue in his early 30s and in 1976 was named president of Bonwit Teller. The chain was sold a year and a half later, leaving Ruttenstein jobless. He was hired almost immediately by Bloomindale’s.Ruttenstein was always a favorite of fashion editors and was always good for a quote on an emerging trend – jodhpurs, say, or his favorite silver leather Chipie sneakers, which he bought in Paris. He owned 13 pairs. He wore black nylon running pants to nearly every event, although for a formal occasion he might add a Donna Karan dinner jacket and an Armani bow tie. He carried a battery-powered fan with him everywhere in all seasons.Ruttenstein was awarded the Phoenix House Fashion Award, the Eleanor Lambert Award of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and, in 2002, Legion d’Honneur.

Kalman Ruttenstein, 69, Fashion Director At Bloomingdale’s, Nurtured Couturiers

Kalman Ruttenstein, 69, Fashion Director At Bloomingdale’s, Nurtured Couturiers

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