Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/174813
Riccardo Dallai Jr. curates a rarified selection of labels at his family's boutique on Newbury Street. TASTEMAKER Model Man RICCARDO DALLAI JR. CARRIES HIS FAMILY'S BUSINESS, RICCARDI, INTO THE FUTURE WITH FASHION'S MOST EXCLUSIVE BRANDS. BY JESSICA LANIEWSKI PHOTOGRAPHY BY SETH OLENICK W hile many of Riccardo Dallai Jr.'s friends were spending their summers in high school on the Cape or Nantucket, he was organizing the stockrooms of his father's high-end fashion boutiques on Newbury Street. "There are many things I can forget, but not the memory of working in a stockroom all summer without airconditioning," says Dallai, now 33, with a laugh. "I've been folding jeans since I was 14." The experience—first at Riccardi on Newbury Street, then at his father's Diesel and Replay stores in the Back Bay and Harvard Square—served as the foundation for his business acumen. But the summers of his youth weren't all folding denim in a windowless room; Dallai would head to Milan for a week with his father to visit the showrooms of legendary designers as they sought clothing for the following year. His Florentine father's tutelage helped him cultivate an appreciation for high fashion at an early age. "I remember going on a buying trip with my father and trying on blazers that hung way past my hands at the Comme des Garçons showroom with designer Rei Kawakubo," says Dallai. He would later use his experiences working for his father to open his own Back Bay store, Relic (now closed), which sold high-end streetwear. Stylish Bostonians have flocked to Riccardi for pieces by Dolce & Gabbana, Givenchy, and Balmain since Dallai's father opened the boutique in 1972. While department stores may be able to carry more items, Riccardi's advantage has always been its curated point of view; the Dallais can sell pieces that not everyone has, and they know what their clients want, even before they do. "We have customers who 96 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM 096-097_BC_SPR_S_StyleSetter_LateFall13.indd 96 9/17/13 11:37 AM