Los Angeles Fashion Week Spring 2002: Jared Gold

Designer Jared Gold’s Spring/Summer 2002 collection, Golden Syndrome, and the designer’s haunting rendition of a Khatchaturian piano concerto struck a chord of inspiration for fashion-show attendees at Audi Presents Designer Collections of Los Angeles Fashion Week.

For his contemporary collection, Gold chose many of the same pieces from his recent New York show but also added four new ones. Highlights included a 1940s-style polka-dot top worn with a secretary skirt and a peacock leather halter with ruling pen hem paired with voile bag skirt, just to name a few—each gussied up with spats and antique brooches. The result: a meacute;lange of timeless classics reminiscent of a golden era.

The show also marked the debut of Gold’s junior collection, Black Chandelier, which fuses the ease of streetwear with the designer’s offbeat sensibility. Among the looks on display: muscle T-shirts paired with men’s box-cut denim or black and white stripped pants, and for women, puff-sleeve cotton polo T-shirts and dresses, and mock pockets on full-length skirts with antique-looking equestrian prints. The trompe l’oeil effects seen in the clothing, though not necessarily unique in today’s fashion market, lent a surreal touch to the collection. The look was part parochial-school student, part delinquent. —Claudia Figueroa