Ralph & Russo: 'Being creative is an emotional experience'

Tamara Ralph, 36, first met Michael Russo, 38, in a London street in 2004. Six years later, they launched their couture house Ralph & Russo, whose runway shows bring their Aussie mums to Europe – and to tears.

"Our main challenge is how quickly we are expanding: we grow out of offices and workshops every year," says Michael Russo.Credit: John Davis

TAMARA: It was 2004, I'd just arrived in London from Sydney and was taking a walk when I literally bumped into Michael. We apologised, heard each other's Australian accents and stood there talking for an hour and a half. We became close very fast and after I went home we would speak on the phone every day. He came over for Christmas, met my family, and I visited his in Brisbane.

Michael wanted me to move to the UK but I had my business designing for private clients in Sydney; I'd learnt about couture from my grandmother and sold my first piece at the age of 12. One day Michael rang and said, "I hope you've got your visa because I've bought you a one-way ticket; you leave next week." When I arrived in London he said he'd organised all the documentation for me to have UK permanent residency. He'd planned everything.

Michael had worked in investment banking, and was then running his own digital music company. We talked about setting up a luxury brand together: we worked out a strategy and made a list of 120 names that we sent to our families. Every one of them voted for Ralph & Russo.

We didn't take investors; we wanted to grow organically and make our name in couture first. I met our first client at a black-tie event: she came up to me and said she loved my gown. I did quite a few pieces for her, she told her friends and they came to us. It was all word of mouth. Within a year we had calls from Beyoncé and Angelina Jolie.

Michael and I are involved in both sides of the company; he runs every business decision past me and I always tell him the feeling I want to take for a collection, and show him the initial concepts and then each individual piece. He has a very good eye for detail and what works on different women. I always listen to him. We love what we do and we talk about it all the time; work is life, there is no division.

Michael used to be a very good cook. Once at the beginning of our relationship, he had been away on business and I made him dinner. It was all laid out beautifully. He took a couple of mouthfuls, stood up and threw it all in the bin. He said, "Please don't ever do that again." That suited me fine! We have a chef at home now; our schedule is very hectic. Michael solves almost every problem with food. Whenever we're up against it, he'll buy mountains of doughnuts for the entire company.

Ralph & Russo has grown very fast and we are often apart, in different offices or travelling separately, but we talk on the phone maybe 25 times a day. We rely on each other for everything; being creative is an emotional experience and he rescues me every day. We make each other laugh, but I think I'm the funnier one.

MICHAEL: When we met in the street, I bumped into Tamara accidentally-on purpose because I thought she was pretty gorgeous. Then we clicked as people but also with where we wanted to go in life. It took me a while to get her out of Australia; in the end I just said, "It's happening!"

We knew we wanted to create a global luxury powerhouse and we spent a lot of time looking at Chanel and Dior and how they started all those years ago; that was the model. We said, "How can we become this?" and "How will we get there and how quickly?"

We didn't have money to spend on marketing or on fancy showrooms or samples. We would take Tamara's beautiful sketches to clients' homes. It was about the service, making these ladies feel comfortable. That's what created the word of mouth as well as the designs.

Now we have our maisons in London and Paris and 300 staff but we're still a family house, we still meet clients together and some have become close friends. Our social life is very much combined with work. Our mothers come from Australia for every show: two ladies who don't spend any money, crying in the front row.

A big pinnacle for the brand came in 2014 when we were invited to show our collections in Paris – the first British house to be admitted to the official program of Paris Fashion Week for a century. The president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture told us he was in love with Tamara's designs.

Tamara also designs our stores, salons and offices; she's involved in every detail. The best analogy is she is like a swan: graceful, calm and polished on top of the water; underneath, very hard-working. Sometimes I have to make her stop; I call her a hundred times a day to get her to come home but if she's on a roll, she's in the zone and I have to let her be. If she has a fault, it's finding it hard to say no to people.

Tamara and I will sit down in front of a wall of her sketches for the next collection and I will ask, "Where are the six dresses for the 16- to 25-year-olds? Where are the eight for the 25-to-45 age group, the seven for the over 50s?" A brand is a marriage between commercial and creative and Tamara understands that. She has a very good business brain, which is unusual in a creative. When we disagree, I'm the one who will call back to apologise.

Our main challenge is how quickly we are expanding: we grow out of offices and workshops every year. Then there are the stores for ready-to-wear, shoes and accessories. We open in New York at the end of the year and we're talking about having a presence in Australia, too. It's all very exciting and we'd like to go quicker: neither of us gets scared easily.

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