Nothing Too Fancy, Just Some Fashion
The L.A. garment district is up to its stylish eyebrows in preparations for this weekend’s shows of spring fashions. We couldn’t help but notice how strikingly different this event will be from the glittery shows in Milan, Paris and New York. Buyers and out-of-town press who come to town expecting glamour will have to do without:
1) Superstar models: Neither the California Mart nor the New Mart across the street can afford $750-an-hour fees, so look for fresh-but-affordable faces from local agencies, going rate: $150 for the show, $75 for rehearsal.
2) Superstar designers: Robin Piccone is the latest L.A. designer to show only in New York where, she says, her line gets more coverage. “Here, all I’d get is the L.A. Times.” Richard Tyler and Mark Eisen have already made the switch.
3) Superstars in the audience: None, unless you count the legions of stylists. “Maybe if we held it at a club. . .” muses one insider.
4) Tents: We’ve heard that the richer, older California Mart is tinkering with the idea for next year’s shows, much to the amusement of a very highly placed New York-based trade paper executive. “Tents?” she giggled.
5) Modesty: “It’s hard to say this without sounding conceited--really conceited--but I think our productions are better than anything in New York or even Europe,” says Denise C. Scher, California Mart fashion director and producer of Saturday’s “Diverse City: Design in L.A.” “We have lots of great technicians.”
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Boy Talk: Let’s see. If Bikini is the Playboy magazine for Generation X, then that makes editor-publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett the Hugh Hefner of the ‘90s.
“Marvin,” we ask him by phone, “are you wearing your pajamas?”
“No,” he says. “I’m wearing jeans and a T-shirt--the pajamas of the ‘90s,” he adds helpfully.
We can see for ourselves what former “Boss” babe Alyssa Milano is wearing in the premier issue--nothing but a bunch of caked-on mud.
Does that make her Miss November? Well, yeah, sort of. But more health-conscious, judging by the accompanying text: She bites into a fruit salad . . . Her eyes shine wickedly, she lets a grape roll slowly into her mouth. . .
“I didn’t want to do a gross, macho, Penthouse kind of thing,” says Jarrett, whose Santa Monica-based publishing company also produces the popular Ray Gun. “If anything, we are looking at women and praising them, you know what I mean?”
It’s a two-way street. Groupie queen and Bikini contributor Pamela Des Barres writes of her encounter with hunky Lemonhead Evan Dando: “I was a puddle of powder and lipstick on the floor.”
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Peek-a-Boo: Speaking of overexposure, the New York fashion crowd is atwitter over the large number of underwear-free models parading down the cat walk this week at the spring collections.
Audience members at the Liza Bruce show were treated to a bevy of bare bottoms, courtesy of sarong skirts that opened in the back.
At Nicole Miller and Christian Francis Roth, skirts were so short that fashion photographers stationed at the foot of the runway reportedly got more than they bargained for. (As did rock-climbing fashion macher David Lee Roth, who was riveted, no doubt, by Miller’s eye for detail.)
When models did put on their underwear, they opted for big white Spanky pants. Such extremists.
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Gone South: We know former Eagle Glenn Frey has a penchant for Armani. But apparently, that alone doesn’t qualify him to make a “P.A.”--public appearance--at a Beverly Center store. When the plug was pulled on Frey’s CBS TV show “South of Sunset” after only one episode, the folks at Bullock’s began scrambling for someone else to appear at the opening of its new menswear store next Tuesday night. Under consideration: David Alan Grier (“In Living Color”) or Mark De Carlo (“Studs”). As far as we know, both shows are still on the air. . .
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Up for Air: Designer Anne Cole is back in the swim after her parent company, Taren Holdings, filed for bankruptcy protection in August. Cole announced Wednesday she will resume production of her signature line under the auspices of Authentic Fitness Corp., the Linda Wachner company.
“Our cruise ’94 collection (shown in early August) was so well received by press and retailers,” Cole said, “I was afraid that some of our best work wasn’t going to see the light of day.” Then came Wachner, who purchased the Anne Cole Collection, along with the Cole of California and Catalina labels, for $45 million.
