Ruby Rox
Caroline Rocky hopes to bring dresses back to the forefront of modern party fashion with junior line Ruby Rox, which launched at the end of 2000.
“We’re predominantly a dress line,” said Rocky, president of the Los Angeles-based company. “We target the junior dress department with younger women’s dresses that you would wear to a party destination and that’s where our inspiration comes from.”
Rocky’s partner, Karna Ruskin, said that the line was designed for the times “when you have somewhere to go and you want to look cute.”
Ruskin also said that care was taken to deliver a line offering good value and a lighthearted look.
“We use great fabrication and great quality at affordable prices,” Ruskin said. “We give them a contemporary, fun look with fun, retro ’50s-inspired designs.”
The name of the line was inspired by the two partners’ mutual love of rubies and includes a play on the name Rocky. Ruskin and Rocky met while both were working for Ecru Studio, and afterwards, while at Timely Trends, they began working on a junior dress line together. In October 2000, they entered into an agreement with MISYD Corp., which finances Ruby Rox and runs the production.
Ruskin said that Ruby Rox has become known as the “party dress resource.”
“We’re also known as the lace resource,” she said. “We’re doing a lot of lace and it’s really nice quality with a stretch to it from Lycra. We do a lot with matte jersey that you could wear for a lot of uses—the office during the day and then change it by adding a necklace at night.”
Ruskin said the line capitalizes on such current trends as feminine ruffles and asymmetrical hems and is able to turn out new styles quickly.
“When the whole uneven hem thing happened, we did well,” said Ruskin. “We shipped faster than anyone else and set the trend for the whole market.”
The Ruby Rox line is currently being sold in most department stores, including Federated, Macy’s, Dillard’s and Windsor. And while the company has yet to participate in trade shows, Rocky and Ruskin said they will consider them in the future.
“We wanted to focus first on our business and understanding our customer base,” said Rocky. “We will expand to specialty stores and we may start to do shows this year. We’re trying not to spread our wings too fast.”Ruby Rox has a showroom on the 12th floor of the California Mart and can be reached at (213) 742-1800. —Darryl James
