Ruben Torres, a Dallas native, graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1952. After an internship with couturier Jules-François Crahay, he designed ski wear for Oregon sportswear brand White Stag until 1960. He moved back to Paris to work for Nina Ricci from '62 to '64, thereafter creating the first couture collection of his namesake maison in July 1966.
In 1967, he designed the Concord bikini, a backless, strapless one piece consisting of foam pads suctioned onto the body. Torres also collaborated with Wagner’s lingerie in the creation of erotic undergarments. He equally designed the uniforms of the French Olympic team during the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble.
Torres also became known for his trompe l’œil creations after the opening day of his prêt-a-porter salon in 1973, when his collection failed to arrive on time and Torres began drawing the collection directly on the models’ skin, proclaiming “no more problems with fabric and sizes!”
Torres is an often-overlooked player in the 1960s Space Age movement. Along with the likes of André Courrèges and Rudi Gernreich, his belief was that unisex fashion was the future: “Boys and girls are getting more and more alike in shape, weight, and height – They have the same activities and need the same clothes. The zip front does away with all that men-button-this-way and women-button-that-way nonsense.”
Ruben Torres erases superfluity, blurs the gender binary, and desexualizes the nude: utilitarianism meets the sexual revolution.
