On a slow summer afternoon, rain softly falls on the towering trees and old-fashioned flowers in Gramercy Park. Nineteenth-century houses line the New York City square, and in the quiet air, it feels like an Edith Wharton novel is silently unfolding. One of the grandest homes of Gramercy Park is at the corner of Irving Place, but it is back to the future because visible through the second floor windows of the house are racks holding resort clothes which will be shipped to stores this winter. This is the home of fashion designer Richard Tyler. Inside and up close, the luxurious fabrics and beautiful details of the expensive designer collection amaze. A strapless printed crepe de chine dress pours into the hands. An asymmetrical evening dress of silver sequins and purple beads caught in a web of netting is lined with diaphanous silk chiffon. Netted evening trousers decorated with bugle beads have a similar lining. Tyler's tailored jackets are hand-lined in silk and all have an interior surprise: a Chinese good luck wedding pocket which is edged with points of fabric, like the teeth of a saw, as one inch squares are folded into corners and sewn on top of one another. The underside of jacket collars are as handsome as the top since they are handsewn, and jacket lapels are pick-stitched so that the lapel rolls smoothly over the women's chest.