TO NEW HEIGHTS
It’s a rainy day in Los Angeles and Juan Carlos Obando is padding around his apartment in a hooded sweat shirt, plaid shorts and shearling slippers, putting the final touches on a spectacular clear-sequin cocktail dress sprouting chiffon “feather” wings on the back. The dress alone took a month and a half to finish, and there’s also an electric blue chiffon coat painstakingly tucked and sewn to look like fur, and a spidery black mini dress constructed from three layers of cashmere lace singed under a high heat to give it shine.
In four days, the designer, who has been a fixture on the L.A. runway calendar for the last five seasons, will pack up those pieces and for the first time show at New York Fashion Week. It is his most ambitious collection yet, beautifully crafted, sophisticated and strong, and it’s inspired by superheroes, the emerging style icons of 2008.
Obando’s timing couldn’t be better. This is a great moment for American designers. Not only have they raised their level of artistry and craftsmanship to new heights, but the style pendulum is swinging toward the cleaner lines Americans do best -- and the weak dollar has pushed European lines into the stratosphere, and store buyers and shoppers toward talent close to home.
As the monthlong circuit of runway shows kicks off this weekend in New York, you can’t help but think about how the economic slowdown is affecting fashion. Stroll any luxury row in New York or Beverly Hills, and the air is buzzing with British and French accents, as European tourists take advantage of their new buying power, and travel to the U.S. for shopping sprees.
For American shoppers, escalating prices on foreign luxury goods are making them more and more unappealing. A plain khaki cotton shirtdress -- sleeveless, unlined, unfinished hem -- from the spring Prada collection is an alarming $1,595 at Barneys. It’s beyond questions of style and cachet; you’d have to be a sucker to spend so much on something so basic.
Department store buyers are picking up on that reaction and say they will be casting a more critical eye on the designer clothing they stock.
“If the price is going to be more than customers are used to, it has to be a really special piece. That’s how we have been looking at collections,” says Ken Downing, senior vice president and fashion director of Neiman Marcus.
Saks Fifth Avenue fashion director Michael Fink echoes the sentiment. “No one is going to buy anything basic at a designer price point. And it is a time for American designers to shine, because there is some control of the cost factor here.”
Some stores are even giving up on selling European lines at all. Consider the price leap: In 2003, a 1,000-euro jacket would have cost $1,080. Today, that jacket would be $1,450.
“I’m focusing more on younger, creative and edgier designers here that I can support and introduce,” says longtime Sunset Plaza boutique owner Tracey Ross, who’s been feeling the pinch for months now.
Marc Jacobs was one of the first designers to fill that bill, of course. And now the Pasadena-based Rodarte designers, Laura and Kate Mulleavy, are also playing a role in changing opinions about American fashion with their romantic, mixed-media pieces, couture-like laces and chiffons.
Koi Suwannagate is another L.A. designer elevating the homespun DIY aesthetic, with sculptural designs and hand-folded rosettes. Nominated for a Council of Fashion Designers of America award, she’s showing in New York for the first time this season, too.
“They’ve shown it’s possible to do that kind of craftsmanship in America,” says Liz Goldwyn, an author, jewelry designer and Rodarte client.
Goldwyn is also enthusiastic about Obando’s clothes, which she calls “intellectual.” He used her as the muse for his Frank Miller-style New York show invitations and consulted her about the collection and the presentation.
Her best advice? Don’t be too literal.
And he wasn’t -- no star insignias or skintight jumpsuits here. But there is a bias-cut gown with a panel of red fabric coming off the side, the faintest hint of a cape.
Superheroes are surging in popularity -- on TV in “Heroes” and “Bionic Woman”; in the upcoming films “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk” and “The Dark Knight”; even at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, where they will be the subject of an exhibition this spring.
Obando says he did not know about the exhibit before he began designing, in which case it certainly is a happy coincidence.
He comes to superheroes by way of comic strips, which he’s been smitten with since he was a kid growing up in the coastal town of Barranquilla, Colombia.
After going to college in Miami, he moved to New York to work as an art director in advertising, and eventually to Los Angeles, where he freelances at Whittmanhart advertising agency, working on such accounts as Harley-Davidson and Scion.
Which means he works on his intricate clothing line at night and on the weekends.
His mother was a seamstress, and now she runs Obando’s small clothing factory in Colombia. Obando never went to fashion school. Instead, he learned about patterns by ripping apart vintage clothes, and fit by spending weeks as an observer at an Italian factory.
Obando started thinking about America as a theme after Karl Lagerfeld’s curiously timed homage to the stars and stripes in the spring Chanel collection, and Obando kept on mulling as he was working on the new ad campaign for Budweiser. Instead of focusing the ads on NASCAR as they had been, Obando and the others working on the account decided to go back to the roots of the beer, its authenticity. The tag line? “Great American lager.”
“It’s about restoring faith and pride in America,” he says.
Which sounds a lot like his fall collection. Obando insists it’s not a political statement, but it does have a story. Because in fashion, as in advertising, you need a story. “I think right now,” he says, “everybody is looking for a superhero.”
And someone who can rock a pair of skintight pants.
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Live from the runway
Starting today, Image will bring you daily front-row coverage of the collections from New York, London, Milan and Paris, with reviews, photo galleries and blog posts at latimes.com/image. Here’s what’s coming:
Daily reviews of the shows by Image editor Booth Moore and Image staff writers. Today: The first round in New York, including Diane von Furstenberg, Herve Leger, Jonathan Saunders, Alexander Wang and Juan Carlos Obando.
Photo galleries showcasing the highlights from the collections, shot by Times staff photographer Kirk McKoy.
Scenes, trends and hot talk from the tents by Melissa Magsaysay and Adam Tschorn.
Commentary from Monica Corcoran on her daily blog, All the Rage, at latimesblogs.latimes.com/alltherage/.
