CELEBRATIONS
RICHARD NEAL AZIE
I
CHEMMY KAL BAKER AZIE
n celebration of his 75th birthday this month,
Vogue features designer EVOLUTION and delves deeper into the history and origins of his most famous fashion line, Life on Earth, which, in turn, turns 50 this summer.
Richard Neal Azie was born in 1938 in Philadelphia, PA. Growing up, he lived with three sisters, two elder and one younger; naturally, though he would never admit it in public, he developed a keen eye for fashion at a young age. In the 1940s, however, men in the fashion industry were unheard of. Thus, Azie decided instead to pursue a career in science, a subject at which he was also adept. At the age of 25, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
In the summer of 1963, just after finishing graduate school, he married his sweetheart from UC Berkeley, Chemmy Kal Baker. In the fall, on their honeymoon, the two of them traveled to Nevada to visit the Eoarchean Hot Springs Resort and Spa. The resort had a somewhat quirky reputation as being the preferred vacation destination of the nation’ s top scientists, this reputation spurned by the resort’ s unusual name: Eoarchean refers to the time period in the Earth’ s geological history approximately 3000 million years ago. Their curiosity piqued, both Azie and their wife were even more delighted upon arrival to note that hot springs at the resort were nicknamed“ hydrothermal vents,” as the jets within that pumped hot water into the springs were modeled to look like the deep-sea vents that have been present on Earth for millions of years. The two were content with their selection of honeymoon destination, especially considering their professional backgrounds.
Azie spent a considerable amount of time spent soaking that day, surrounded by hydrothermal vents. And while he soaked, he thought. And as he thought, an idea began to form in his mind. In his mind, he began to fashion design. He pictured a simple piece of clothing, just a plain blouse, white, with no frills, no embellishments, no intricate designs. It had only one layer of material, made from a soft, organic cotton. The piece itself was nothing special, but when Azie pictured it in his mind, he could feel his future in design forming. And so, it was in the hydrothermal vents of the Eoarchean where EVOLUTION and Life on Earth were born.
14 VOGUE JUNE 2013
By: Meghan Hadley