Los Angeles Designers : L.A. International : Innovators From Around the World Opt for the Life and Style of Southern California
International influences spice L.A. style. The talents of France, South Africa, Newfoundland, South Korea, Great Britain, Israel, Greece and the Philippines are represented by designers who came to enjoy the city’s casual chic and experimental spirit. Each of the nine designers profiled here has established both a new home and a reputation for creating exuberant, confident fashion.
PEPITO ALBERT
Pepito Albert came to California 10 years ago from Manila with a plan to study architecture. “I’ve always been interested in construction, angles, squares, lines, all that. And I’ve always been attracted to clothing,” says the 26-year-old designer, who left USC to study at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. He prefers moldable materials that he can “sculpt around the body.” Velvet, taffeta, organdy and organza are some of the fabrics he uses to construct evening clothes. Wool and cotton gabardines, backed with fusing for extra body, are among his choices for day wear.
MARK EISEN
When Mark Eisen came to California from Cape Town, South Africa, 10 years ago, he went into real estate development. But he found the work “frustrating, limited.” So in 1987, he completed his “last building in Fresno” and started a clothing firm specializing in Chanel-inspired suits and high-fashion ensembles in “couture denim.” Eisen says: “I was tired of distressed and destroyed. I wanted to make sophisticated cotton-denim clothes.” The 29-year-old designer says that being nominated for the California Mart’s California Designer award convinced him that he had a product: outfits designed to become what he calls “closet treasures.”
UGO BLAKE
Ugo Blake was studying to be a painter and sculptor at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris when she fell into designing. Blake, now 32, says she made all her own clothes, and “people would ask me to make something for them.” After a while, she tired of Europe. “I thought it was a bit stuffy. A friend was coming here, so I thought, ‘Well, why not?’ ” Now she works out of a big house in Hollywood. “I get very inspired for summer here. But sometimes I go to New York or France to feel the cold.” She designs her natural-fabric sportswear for one person: “Me. I like simple, plain, efficient clothes. The shapes are always loose and comfortable. I hate frills and ruffles, but I do have a romantic edge.”
EMIL RUTENBERG
Two years after South African-born Emil Rutenberg entered medical school, he decided he “wasn’t cut out for another seven years of study.” He had relatives in the garment trade, so he thought he’d try designing and merchandising. By the time he arrived in L.A. in 1983, Rutenberg had put together “a little collection of cotton shirts, pants, skirts.” Soon his work was in major stores. The 38-year-old designer calls his women’s clothes “updated classical” and his menswear “extremely directional. We seem to attract people looking for something interesting.”
ANTONY MOORCROFT
Antony Moorcroft arrived in L.A. seven years ago via Zimbabwe and St. Martin’s College of Art in London. “I was feeling cold and depressed,” Moorcroft recalls of his student days. Then he realized, “I could do what I was planning in the United States easier than anywhere. L.A. lived up to my expectations and more.” Cities like New York, London, Athens, Florence and Copenhagen are “all very beautiful and exciting, but they don’t give me the sense of space and freedom I have here.” Moorcroft, 28, designs with an “emphasis on femininity, wearability. I don’t dress a woman so she appears contrived or silly.”
IRENE HAHN
South Korean-born Irene Hahn has lived in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong and New York. She earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in sculpture from Boston University, but a chance encounter with the trash cans behind the Body Glove factory in Hermosa Beach changed the course of her life. She and Kent Maul, who have since established EZWear Accessories, noticed brightly colored scraps of discarded neoprene. “Kent had to hold me by my ankles so I could reach into the cans,” she remembers. They turned the remnants into earrings and bracelets, which they presented to Body Glove executives. “They loved them, and soon we were a licensee.”
ALDO GIANNE
Aldo Gianne, designer for Italian Boys, was born in Greece, studied in Milan and Geneva and came to Los Angeles after designing in Tokyo. He says many of his designs are inspired by the California surf scene. “I don’t think I could have accomplished them anywhere else. There is the weather, the beach, all the different cultures. Everywhere I go, I see something to give my work new direction.”
BIYA KATZ RAMAR
Biya Katz Ramar left her native Israel for New York, “but the winter was too much for me.” In L.A. she found a climate more like home. She works with her husband and brother creating Rated R and Biya fashions. The latter is “for women who work and want more than sportswear.” Rated R, a more moderately priced line, is “oversize, casual, comfortable. When you wear it, you’re noticed but not too much.”
RIC ROSS
Ric Ross, 25, emigrated from Newfoundland when he was 4. In 1983, he made L.A. his full-time home and established Street Diver, named for his first big seller: a belt made of polypropylene webbing and nylon buckles. Now he designs “all types of beach cover-ups and sportswear out of neoprene, nylon, cotton and Lycra.” For fall, he will feature neoprene mixed with denim, cotton twill or cotton jersey. Next year, he plans to introduce a swimwear line. Ross, who surfs several times a week, says the beach life style is his biggest influence. “It’s what made me want to use the fabrics.”
Photographed by Eika Aoshima; styling by Cluade Deloffre
