Zoran Ladicorbic

Zoran Ladicorbis was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1947. The designer, who goes by his first name, was trained in his native country as an architect, and a love of geometric shapes and straight lines is evident in his clothing design.

Zoran came to the United States in 1972. Although he had no formal education in fashion, he worked for the first few years in retail. He was also an accessories designer for the 1970s women's fashion designer, Scott Barrie.

After a few years, he opened his own business and showed his first collection in 1976. He was using only the best and most luxurious fabrics. Cashmere, satin, velvet, and high-quality wool are staples of his collection. He creates two collections a year, spring and fall, and shows them in his New York loft-workplace located in the downtown SoHo neighborhood.

Zoran has kept to this minimalist aesthetic even during the more flamboyant 1980s. In the somewhat more abashed 1990s, his designs have gathered more momentum and his customer base has increased. His designs are not cheap, but he has a loyal following that snaps up his designs year after year.

Among the Zoran devotees are model-actresses. His clothes are sold by high-level, slightly avant-garde stores such as Barney's and Henri Bendel in New York, as well as out of his workplace.

Zoran believes that his typical customer visits him once a year and buys several thousand dollars' worth of pieces at one time. Like the color palette, the silhouettes vary only slightly from season to season. Core pieces include a cardigan jacket, a T-shirt, crewneck cashmere sweaters, loose trousers, loose shorts, and a sarong skirt, which the designer claims he wore himself for a year to make sure the fit was correct.

Zoran resortwear and knitwear collections remained strong sellers throughout the late 1990s.

Zoran's minimalist designs, often called "spare luxury," appeal to a select and increasingly visible clientéle. Once hard to come by, Zoran apparel is now available at many high-end department stores, from Ultimo to Henry Bendel, Saks Fifth Avenue to Bergdorf Goodman. Zoran is popular with not only his growing client base, but with his fellow designers as well. When Women's Wear Daily had asked 50 designers in 1996 who should replace the departing Gianfranco Ferré at the House of Dior, Fabrizio Ferri perhaps gave Zoran the ultimate compliment: "The people who wear couture today wear it as a status symbol, rather than because they have style.

In 1999, the Chairman of Saks Fifth Avenue, told the New York Times, "Zoran is at the very top". His annual sales were estimated at $ 25 million wholesale in that year.