Nuvula at Concept LA Fashion Week in October
ON WITH THE SHOWS
Los Angeles Fashion Week
Designers from across Los Angeles and around the world are preparing to show their Fall 2014 collections at the upcoming Los Angeles Fashion Week. When they arrive for the March 9–19 events, they will be greeted by a lot of changes in a fashion week that seems to be perpetually under construction.
This season, veteran fashion-week producers have scaled back their productions or bowed out all together. Others are trying stepping into the ring with new events.
Style Fashion Week, the LAFW producer with the largest slate of designers, showing with more than 29 runway shows, will return to the LA Live compound in downtown Los Angeles March 9–13.
Highlights from Style Fashion Week will be shows from the quirky, celebrated veteran designer Betsey Johnson to Los Angeles–based Maggie Barry, who designs costumes for performers Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and David Lee Roth. Barry will be showing her streetwear collection. Also producing shows will be theatrical Dubai-based designer Furne One and “Project Runway” alum Michael Costello.
Costello said that he has partnered with Mood Fabrics to present an emerging designer showcase at Style Fashion Week, which will feature the work of Walter Mendez, R. Michel’le and Costello’s new line, MT Costello.
Concept Los Angeles will again produce a full day of runway shows and installations on March 15. This season, Concept, which has been producing LA Fashion Week events since 2010, will move to the Mack Sennett Studios, an event space and soundstage in the Silver Lake neighborhood where Charlie Chaplin filmed some of his silent movies. Most of the designers exhibiting at Concept, such as rock ’n’ roll–inspired Jen Awad,are from Los Angeles, but the event also will mark the U.S. debut for up-and-coming Turkish designer Özgür Masur.
Concept founder Mike Vensel said his event offers something that fashion people are said to ignore—consistency. “There are a lot of people who come and go in fashion production in Los Angeles,” he said. “We’ve been able to weather storms and produce shows that are sustainable. Even if the market fluctuates, we’ve been able to produce shows.”
Veteran fashion-week impresario Mikey Koffman will take a break from her Los Angeles Fashion Weekend show, which has consistently been on the LAFW schedule for more than four years. She plans to produce an LA Fashion Weekend in October.
“We felt LA did not need two full fashion weeks a year,” she said. But she plans on being active in spring 2014. She will produce the LA Fashion Awards show on April 5 at the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood.
Last season,emerging designer showcase Los Angeles Fashion Council made a splash when it produced its shows at The Grove retail center. This season, LAFC producer Kelsi Smith will host presentations for 10 designers, including Rose La Grua, on the rooftop of the Academy Award Clothes showroom building in downtown Los Angeles March 10–11.
One reason LAFC scaled back this season is that Smith will be taking LAFC designers to Tokyo Fashion Week, where they will exhibit their Fall 2014 looks March 17–22. “It’s to show off Los Angeles globally,” Smith said of her Japanese trip. “We want a global platform for designers. The more we do that, the more people will come to Los Angeles to see the designers.”
LAFC might go back to The Grove for LAFW in October. Smith said she has been in some preliminary talks with The Grove about a return engagement. Grove management did not return an email requesting comment.
After a few seasons in downtown Los Angeles, Project Ethos will return to the Avalon nightclub in Hollywood for its March 18 event, which will present a night of emerging fashion labels such as Indah Clothing, music and art.
“In Los Angeles, we do it differently. We include music and art; musicians make and influence fashion,” said Jason Peskin, Project Ethos’ executive producer and chief executive officer. “We wanted to create more outlets for these people.”
Project Ethos is one of several Los Angeles Fashion Week events mixing fashion and music. Runway and A&M Productions will produce Rock That Fashion March 14 in Hollywood. A group of six designers, including China Fashion Week alum Zhang Jing Jing Couture, will produce runway shows during an evening that also features musical performances and a reception where the audience can talk with the designers.
After four years away from the Los Angeles Fashion Week scene, designer Atousa G will again host her SewDown event on March 15 at 333 Live in downtown Los Angeles. The event features a runway show with up-and-coming designers, including Atousa G., Tamo, Goldplated, Rico Adair, Rockem Eyewear, Mamacita Jewelry, Tooth Gems by Foxy, BodyMudra Mantra Wear, Wildlife Works Apparel, Herbal Roots Apothecary and Lady Hawk Love, as well as live music and DJ sets and a marketplace where guests can purchase clothing, jewelry, music, footwear and art.
There will also be independent runway shows during LA Fashion Week. Rio Warner will be producing a runway show on March 14 at Box 8 Studios, the events space and photography studio that once produced its own LA Fashion Week events.
