L.A. by Design
Port of Los Angeles to celebrate centennial with help from L.A.’s fashion community
Lauren Taylor is on a mission.
Cruising aboard a 65-foot-long boat called the Angelena II, the wind whipping through her blond hair, Taylor snaps pictures of towering cranes that can lift up to 50 tons of cargo. She studies the designs, silhouettes and shapes of the hulking cargo container ships docked at the sprawling Port of Los Angeles, the busiest port in the United States. She marvels at the dark brown seals and sea lions that lounge on the port’s buoys, oblivious to any passersby.
Taylor has an assignment to create a design that will end up on hundreds of Chinesemade silk scarves and ties that will be given out to commemorate the port’s 100th anniversary in 2007.
The idea behind the project—named L.A. by Design—is to show how Los Angeles’ creative fashion community whips up ideas here, ships them to Asia for production and then transports the finished products by ship to L.A., where they first enter U.S. territory at the Port of Los Angeles.
“We were thinking of ways that would highlight our centennial,” said Theresa Adams Lopez, the port’s director of media relations. “We get so many negative comments about the number of goods imported through the port. But we know we export designs overseas that come back here. And much of that is done with the apparel design community centered here in Los Angeles. So we thought it would be a good idea to show how the design concept comes full circle.”
Planning a project
The project started a few months ago with Julia T. Nagano, the port’s director of corporate communications, who came up with the idea of using scarves and ties as a promotional device. She immediately took the idea to Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association, the Los Angeles apparel industry trade group that promotes California fashion locally and abroad, hoping she could help.
Their first task was to find someone to develop a unique design for the accessories. They went to the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in downtown Los Angeles in search of a student who could incorporate all the elements of the port, trade and fashion into a contemporary look. They worked with Steve Reaves, head of FIDM’s graphic design department, who discovered Taylor when he spotted one of her computer-generated collages as he was walking through the school’s graphic design lab one day.
“I saw Lauren’s collage style and thought it would work with what everyone wanted,” Reaves said. “I knew they didn’t want the typical boats and sailboats in the design. Lauren’s work was fresh and unique and mood-driven.”
Taylor was selected by a small committee and hired for $1,000 to create the design for the centennial ties and scarves, which is part of a $100,000 anniversary celebration budget.
One of the project’s first steps was for Taylor to meet with Vlady Cornateanu, an apparel industry veteran who for years has been sourcing scarves, ties, boxer shorts, T-shirts, pajamas and other loungewear in Asia. He had used factories in South Korea, but 12 years ago, he switched to China, where goods for his two companies, NextWear Inc. and Addiction, are produced.
Cornateanu is supposed to receive the final design by July 1 and have the first samples in hand by Aug. 1. Then it will take 45 to 60 days to produce about 1,000 ties and 500 to 1,000 scarves in China and 14 days more to ship them back to L.A. by December for the launch of the celebration.
For the ties, Cornateanu is planning to use a factory in Shengzhou, known as China’s tie center. The scarves will be made in Sichuan Province.
A few days after meeting with Cornateanu, Taylor was given a private tour of the Port of Los Angeles aboard the Angelena II, which was skippered by Capt. Anthony DiTucci.
As the luxury craft cruised at 6 knots, Taylor hoisted her Canon single-reflex digital camera and began snapping photos, one right after another. The port’s twin-engine tour boat was dwarfed by the cargo ships stacked five to six stories high with containers.
Towering overhead were 300-foot-high cranes that lift the containers off the ships and place them on chassis to be trucked out of the port or on railroad cars for transport to distribution centers across the country.
“This is so cool,” said Taylor. “Am I really here right now?” The native of Hawaii initially enrolled in FIDM thinking she was going to be a greeting card designer. Now she does designs for the apparel industry, interning at Hale Bob, a line of contemporary clothing owned by designer Daniel Bohbot and based in Vernon, Calif.
“I really like the cranes,” Taylor said, looking up at the green metal structures that resembled prehistoric birds. “For my design, I would like to do some layering of cranes. I want to keep it natural with the water. I can’t wait to put all these photos on my computer.”
