Scene Stealers : Four Young L.A. Designers Are Poised to Make Their Marks on the Fashion World
Los Angeles, the cultural melting pot, is a steady source of fresh fashion talent from around the world. Recently, four young designers have captured attention.
Best known is Kim Dam, 35, who was born in Vietnam. She believes that life there in the war-torn ‘70s taught her how to surmount chaos and career obstacles. She and her family escaped as boat people and arrived in Los Angeles in 1975.
Within 12 years, she had earned a degree in fashion design from Los Angeles Trade and Technical College and started a business, Ba-Tzu, a contemporary clothing collection with a store in the Beverly Center. That same year, she designed and launched Kymio, a sportswear line, with Stefan Gerhardt as her partner.
Early this year, Dam launched a signature collection of more sophisticated and higher quality women’s sportswear, priced from $70 to $270.
“Kymio had the design but somehow didn’t have the quality that I expected,” she says. “With Kim Dam, I want my designs to show quality, which is the most important thing.”
Burbank designer Ofelia Montejano, 35, says her design talents were nurtured by her mother during her early years in Michoacan, Mexico, and by her education at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles.
“My mother would always make beautiful dresses for me, and I would sit by the sewing machine and watch what she was doing,” says Montejano. “I was so stubborn about how I wanted things to look that one time I ripped a dress apart.”
Montejano designs classic, tailored separates and dresses that retail from $120 to $700. But Montejano says she would like to design more of the bright, ornamented clothes that reflect the festive and flirtatious side of her native culture.
In contrast, Gina Ruiz, 28, of Mexican descent, has no memories of Mexico; she was born and raised in Los Angeles. After earning a degree in economics from UC Irvine, Ruiz had not chosen a career, so she taught aerobics at a health club near the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. Her interest was piqued by the students she saw attending the institute. She took fashion design classes and eventually designed Khaki and Whites, a line of affordable separates.
That company was closed in 1989, but Ruiz bounced back and began designing a new label with a similar look. Comme Classique, a collection of sportswear separates priced from $50 to $150, was launched late last year. Los Angeles is also home to Alayne Arrastia-Tuason, 32, who was born in Sacramento, but was raised in the Philippines. Two elements in her affluent upbringing shaped her interest in fashion.
“I had seven fashion-conscious, well-dressed aunts who were known for their beauty and elegance,” she says. “I also traveled frequently to Italy.” (Her mother was well connected in the Philippines, and her stepfather was Italian.)
After completing marketing studies at a private Catholic college in Manila, Arrastia-Tuason returned to Los Angeles and started showing small clothing collections by Philippine designers to private customers. She soon tried her own hand at design. The result is Arrastia, a line of sophisticated dresses and separates priced from $100 to $800.
Two years after launching her label, Arrastia-Tuason has established some unusual business practices. Her company recently bought three townhouses that she is converting into combination factory and employee housing spaces. Employees have the option of living in one of the townhouses free. She said that in the Philippines, a premium is placed on the people who help make a business successful. They become part of the family.
