On the eve of the release of the book Autobiography of a Fashion Designer: Ralph Rucci ($195; Bauer and Dean; http://baueranddean.com/rucci.php), I went to pay the author a visit at his home in the east seventies. Actually, I went to pay homage to an artist I had always wanted to meet, who has been creating extraordinary couture fashion for the last 30 years. I had seen the book, which includes photos of his home, so I knew what to expect on one level. But actually being there, I felt like I was in a Proust novel, protected and severed from the outside world. Friend Susan Gutfreund decorated the apartment at a time when, Ralph writes, it “was ready to be grown-up.” When he came into the living room to meet me, the first thing he did was take off his jacket and put it over one of the leather Louis XVI fauteuils. Photo: Wendy Goodman