No vanity project
FOR the last few seasons Los Angeles has made its presence felt at New York Fashion Week through the glare of celebrity. Who can forget Gwen Stefani’s $1-million runway extravaganza with bouncing hot rods and a fake snowfall, or J.Lo’s Sweetface show with 20-carat diamond-trimmed jeans and the debut of her new single? Then there’s the front row -- P. Diddy playing fashion mogul with a white dog and a beefy entourage, Beyonce canoodling with boyfriend Jay-Z, Nicole Richie with Ja Rule, watching a collection designed (in the loosest sense of the word) by Wyclef Jean’s wife.
But that moment in fashion has passed -- for now -- and as the Spring 2007 runway season kicks off today, the word from the West is more dignified. Some of fashion’s most promising new talents -- the future Proenza Schoulers and Zac Posens perhaps -- are coming out of Southern California, leaving L.A. for the exposure that only New York Fashion Week can promise and making an impression based on talent, not celebrity.
Rodarte’s Kate and Laura Mulleavy, from Pasadena, are developing a cult following for their couture-level creations, which have a boldness of spirit not seen since James Galanos was working in this town. Trovata, the surfer dude design collective from Orange County, is continuing to inspire with its quirky sportswear, which is taking up a chunk of real estate in Barneys New York. Meanwhile, Grey Ant’s Grant Krajecki, known for his charmingly low budget shows at L.A. Fashion Week (one a reenactment of a teen-scream horror film, complete with fake blood) is bringing some of L.A.’s underground spunk to his New York debut, with a performance by the Hysterica Dance Company.
And then there’s Jovovich-Hawk. When actress Milla Jovovich and former model Carmen Hawk first showed their collection in New York last September, industry watchers expected it would be another short-lived celebrity vanity project. But what has emerged is a fledgling brand that captures all the individualism of L.A.’s thrift and vintage store style. Now in its sixth season, the label has gained enough momentum to be nominated for the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Magazine Fashion Fund award, competing against Rodarte, among others, for a $50,000 prize.
Jovovich may be known for sci-fi thrillers such as “The Fifth Element” and “Resident Evil,” but her line of pixie-style cocktail smocks and sheaths is decidedly uncelebrity. It is not backed by an apparel guru or built around jeans and T-shirts with her name slapped on them. In fact, it’s totally self-financed, and until recently, the designers sourced all of their own fabric.
Now that the label is sold in 100 stores, including Barneys New York, Nordstrom, Fred Segal and Harvey Nichols, they are taking things up a notch, hiring an event planner to organize Sunday’s show in a rented space in the Meatpacking District, not Jovovich’s own town house in the West Village.
Not that they want to give up the hands-on aspect of fashion, because these are craftsy girls who actually enjoy sketching, draping, working with the seamstresses, even staying up all night to paint fashion postcards to show with their collection to the CFDA judging committee.
Their Cahuenga Boulevard studio has shelves stacked high with inspiration books about Erte, Victorian engravings, modern military uniforms and 1980s nightlife. The walls are papered with sketches and the tables littered with ashtrays. Clear the fabric swatches, lace scraps and grosgrain ribbon snippets off a chair, listen to them chat for a while, and you get an appreciation for their dedication. Because when the Marlboro Lights start firing up, all time is lost and it becomes clear these girls can riff about fashion for hours.
Hawk: “Remember in the early 1990s when Stephen Meisel was doing that pimpy stuff that was very 1970s but also uber 1920s?”
Jovovich: “Oh, yeah, with Madonna wearing all those crazy jeweled patchwork vests looking like an elf?”
Hawk: “It was also very Stevie Nicks. It was fun at the time. I remember ripping all my eyebrows out.... “
Their approach to design is similarly stream of consciousness, and there is a refreshing innocence to it. The spring collection was inspired by such disparate cultural references as the French seaside photographs of turn-of-the-century artist Jacques Henri Lartigue, old carnivals and Jerry Hall.
“When we made our presentation to the CFDA, we seemed like children compared to everyone else, even our style and the way we dress,” says Jovovich, who carries on with Hawk like a schoolgirl friend, finishing her sentences and talking over her.
Their versions of Victorian slips come with lace inlays and Mexican-looking embroidery, and jersey dresses in prints by outsider artist Henry Darger, whose childlike style is an obvious influence on their design sketches. There is a lot of little girl in Jovovich-Hawk, so much so that the designers took photographs of Hawk’s 6-year-old daughter, Ava, in adult dresses, and attempted to replicate the blousy fit.
“We wanted them to fit us like they fit her,” says Hawk, 35, pale to the point of translucence and stick-thin in a baby-doll dress cut high on her thighs.
“I think we are living in one of the best times in history for fashion,” says Jovovich, 30, more masculine in stovepipe jeans and a skirted jersey top from the upcoming spring collection. She looks as if she could kick butt at any moment thanks to years of martial arts training.
“For the first time you can choose from any genre, any time period and not look like a freak. I remember when I first started modeling in the early 1980s and there was a 1960s revival with bell-bottoms and Grateful Dead T-shirts. We may still have that kind of thing in magazine editorials, but it’s not about copying that.”
Hawk agrees. “It isn’t one look. It’s something for everyone, that piece that you find in a thrift store that’s personal to you. We’re making it at a bigger volume, but people can still choose for themselves.”
The collection was born in 2003. At the time, Hawk was an artist making one-of-a-kind shirts, and Jovovich was busy with acting and consulting for Miuccia Prada and Giorgio Armani. Friends since their modeling days, they decided to team up -- first on a cover version of Jane’s Addiction’s “Jane Says.” “I thought it was a brilliant cover,” Hawk says, inciting one of many gulping laughs from her friend. But the musical career was not meant to be. So they spent “way too much money” on fabrics at International Silks & Woolens on Beverly Boulevard and created an eight-piece clothing collection.
“We were in our bedrooms sewing and next thing you know Fred Segal bought the collection,” says Hawk, who was raised in a St. Louis suburb and now lives in Hollywood. “Then we had the terrible task of actually creating it.”
Their samples were made from vintage laces and silks that cost $150 a yard, which meant that those first dresses sold for an astounding $2,500 at retail. “Even then, it was half of what they were worth, but we sold out. We made a huge splash with a small number of pieces.”
They were in business but without any understanding of the nuts and bolts. So they turned to Jovovich’s birthplace, Kiev, Ukraine, hiring seamstresses there to have their samples produced. The experience ended up being so stressful it landed Hawk in the hospital.
“We have made every situation more difficult -- that’s the story of our career as fashion designers, taking obstacles and making it something good,” says Jovovich, who moved to L.A. with her parents at age 5, was photographed by Richard Avedon for Revlon’s most-beautiful-women-in-the-world campaign at 11, and retired from the runway at 15. A year ago, they figured out that it was cheaper to have samples made in New York and manufacturing done in China, which allows for a quick turnaround and more reasonable prices. Most pieces in the line are less than $1,000.
Fred Segal on Melrose has been stocking Jovovich-Hawk’s $465 Rosemary dress, inspired by Mia Farrow in the film “Rosemary’s Baby,” since the first season. “It has become the uniform of summer,” according to women’s wear buyer John Eshaya, who has reordered the black sheath with puffy sleeves and lace netting around the collar six times for Michelle Williams, Kate Bosworth and other fans of the line.
Hawk says they are finally breaking even with the collection but not yet turning a profit. Jovovich continues to act in films, in part to support the collection.
“This is definitely No. 1 for me in a lot of ways,” she says.
For spring, they will introduce a core of basic pieces as well as 1970s- and ‘80s-inspired jeans, which they hope will appeal to a broader base of customers. And if they win the CFDA award, they plan to hire an in-house representative to help with sales and media.
“If we’d started with jeans and T-shirts, maybe we would have made more money, but maybe not,” Jovovich says. “By starting with the most expensive stuff, we were showing our love of making beautiful clothes. We are not trying to make a quick buck.”
