Storming the Tents

For 20 years Max Azria made blue jeans in Paris for his own chain of clothing stores. But it wasn’t blue jeans that landed Azria, now head of the design house BCBG, on a runway here. Rather, it was greenbacks and guts.

On the second day of Fashion Week, the stocky designer found himself at the head of a catwalk with a dozen models at his side and the fashion cognoscenti politely applauding at his feet. After a wave and a smile he retreated backstage, where minutes later the publisher of Vogue would give him a congratulatory hug and the smiling editor in chief of Marie Claire would offer her cheek. Nearby, Azria’s wife, Lubov, looked close to tears of relief.

Amid insider controversy and some buzz, the Los Angeles-based designer had just finished staging his first New York show with 68 outfits and a lot of loud rock ‘n’ roll.

The preparation had many of the same qualities as the buildup to a Broadway opening. Except there was no real rehearsal and the publicist pulled an all-nighter to finish the seating chart for 600.

While the BCBG show went off with no major gaffes, the reviews hinted that the designer might have spent, well, perhaps a few more nights in New Haven.

From Women’s Wear Daily, the fashion industry bible, came the suggestion that Azria didn’t keep his eyes only on his own sketch pad. “A feisty, well-priced take on Miuccia [Prada’s] collection” was how the newspaper put it.

From Newsday there was some encouragement, but also the final assessment that some BCBG ensembles screamed, “Mistake!”

And from the New York Times there was a backhanded compliment: “Of course the theme was 1970s, and if the idea was as bland and irritating as elevator music by now, Mr. Azria did it as well as several of his higher-priced counterparts.”

The day before his show Azria had dreamed of a WWD review burbling with praise: “We had a surprise last night and it was BCBG!”

But Azria, ever the practical businessman, was ultimately delighted with his trip East.

“On Saturday in my [Madison Avenue] store we did $22,000 in one day, probably because of the TV [runway] coverage,” he says. “I never dreamed of such success in a day!”

Azria also reports many calls and new orders taken at his New York showroom.

He decided to mount the New York show in October after being named California Designer of the Year. “If people decided I was the best designer in California then why not go to New York?” he recalls thinking.

Azria and a few other California designers had also been disappointed in the turnout last fall of important East Coast magazine editors for the spring collections in Los Angeles. In New York, 1,500 fashion reporters from all over the world--never mind hundreds of store buyers--would circulate among tents erected for the shows in Bryant Park.

There, BCBG and such other Los Angeles companies as Bisou-Bisou, Parallel and Janet Howard also hoped to enjoy the cache of mixing it up with top American designers dominated by the troika of Calvin, Donna and Ralph.

With an investment of $150,000 (including almost $25,000 for the tent rental), Azria could acquire international recognition just as his BCBG stores are about to open in Japan and London, bringing the total to 38 by year’s end. Boutiques in such stores as Bloomingdale’s also sell the clothes.

“We recognize that New York is the ultimate platform,” he says.

Azria never anticipated becoming a crucial part of “the story” of the fall ’96 collections. Every season has one. One year it’s the models. Another it’s a hot new designer. This year, “the story” was the last-minute exodus of Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren from the tents. Calvin Klein scowled at their disloyalty, but Karan said she wanted a more intimate setting and Lauren said fabric delays forced him to reschedule in another location.

But the move was seen by many insiders as a snub to newcomers like BCBG, Bisou-Bisou, Parallel and others, which hawk their clothes, of all things, at a lower price. (We’re talking $450 suits versus the standard $800 to $1,000 numbers.)

Nevertheless, the democratization of the tents served Azria well as his trendy, all-synthetic sportswear became a symbol of the controversy.

“I don’t have competition,” he says of the notion that he might have borrowed from his better-known designers. “Our prices are better and our clothes are a little more hip than, say, DKNY. . . .”

However Azria’s work compares to that of a Karan or Prada, he certainly dispenses with the usual pretenses. He doesn’t blather on about his “mood” upon designing a collection nor “his vision.”

“I don’t want to be part of the 2 or 3% that pretends to be artists,” Azria says. “My biggest influence is the consumer. If she wants leather collars, that’s what she’ll get.”

*

With two days left before the BCBG runway show, Lubov Azria, a designer for her husband’s company, is smoking madly in the foyer of the BCBG showroom in a high-rise on the edge of Times Square. An entourage of fitters, designers and sales staff has flown in on the red-eye after working on the show all weekend in the company’s headquarters on the southern fringe of downtown L.A.

“I am sorry, but I am so nervous I must smoke,” says the 28-year-old Lubov, a native of Kiev who met her husband when she applied for a job.

Lubov, along with a New York publicist who is organizing the show and a Marie Claire editor who is quietly loaning her services as a stylist, are casting models: watching them walk, assessing how they look in the clothes and, as it turns out, ordering many alterations because most samples are too big for the emaciated models.

When Filippa, a sought-after 14-year-old German, walks out swimming in a brown vest and matching pants, Lubov maternally beckons her: “Come here, honey, let’s see what we can do.”

In late afternoon Azria arrives, seeming oddly detached from the pre-show drama as he examines the clothes on racks ringing the showroom. In fact, he appears almost bemused by it all--the childlike models, his wife’s nerves (which he occasionally tries to soothe with a pat or kiss)--and more interested in talking via portable phone to some of the 300 people working at his 200,000-square-foot headquarters.

“This,” he says with a smile, “is just a small part for me. There is much going on back in L.A.”

Azria was born in Tunisia and migrated at age 13 to Paris, where he later launched a chain of stores called Jess. In 1981, he moved to Los Angeles and started manufacturing active wear. Last year, BCBG’s sales hit $42 million, and Azria, 46, expects to do at least $100 million next year.

He points to a pair of black hip-hugger jeans: “This season, pants and shirts are very important,” he says, adding: “No designer has as good a retail consumer approach as I do.”

An assistant interrupts. “Max,” she says, “$15 or $20?”

Without asking for an explanation, he says, “$15.” That’s how much a discounter will pay apiece for 800 nylon jackets that sold last year for $100 each.

Dumping of excess merchandise in places like Marshalls is perhaps one of the things that makes Azria a less desirable tenant in the tents. But he is unfazed. “It’s the system,” he says. “They’re all in Marshalls.”

Still facing a long evening of planning makeup, hair and the order of outfits, the group starts sorting through a pile of model photographs. Lubov says the show needs more ethnic-looking models.

“At this point I just want 10 more girls. Period,” says Felicia Geller, the publicist-organizer who has been casting the show for more than a week.

Azria, who has never even been to a New York fashion show, never mind staged one, looks at a model’s photo and tells Geller to scrap her.

“But Max,” Geller protests, “we’ve already paid for her.”

“She’s a baby,” he says. “Get rid of her.”

*

To jump-start the jaded hearts of the fashion editors a designer needs to do something extraordinary: hire supermodels, add shocking accessories or, heaven forbid, create truly original clothes.

Or the designer needs a gimmick.

That’s exactly what got L.A. designer Howard the little bit of attention she received here last week.

A small, dark-haired Pasadena native who once worked as a Nordstrom buyer, Howard designs an eponymous line of contemporary wear that’s slightly more expensive than BCBG’s. She and her partner, Sherri Rosen, backed by Rosen’s mother, decided to spend $60,000 to storm the Bryant Park tents because they, too, had been ignored by the “big boys in New York.”

So they brought Howard’s designs East but also imported two models--friends Traci Lords, the former adult movie star, and Eleanor Mondale, the former vice president’s daughter. While Howard’s clothes received spare reviews, the New York tabloids all took notice--and photographs--of Lords looking flashy in a skintight long dress.

Howard’s name was pushed out front. At least a little bit.

In her tiny 40th Street showroom, decorated with antiques and a crystal chandelier, Howard explains how taking the risk and spending the money to come to New York were critical to her future.

“In L.A.,” she says, “you show with designers who make platinum schmatta mommy wear and rayon printed wear. I don’t hang with BCBG. I hang with Todd [Oldham], Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui. That’s where they place me in the stores. So if they’re here, I need to be.”

One New York editor who had seen Howard’s last Los Angeles show said she looked forward to the designer’s New York debut. But the editor, who asked not to be named, was disappointed by how Howard’s and BCBG’s collections looked under the bright lights.

“Somehow, the New York runway is too big a stage for these new commercial designers,” she says. “The clothes don’t translate here. Their collections can’t handle 60 outfits and therefore the show is too repetitive. . . . But Janet is talented. She’ll do fine when people see her stuff in little boutiques in department stores.”

*

The almost nonchalant Azria finally feels the pressure of his first New York show. An hour before showtime he admits he’s tense.

“Yes,” he says, “now I am finally nervous. . . . Now it begins.”

He is behind the stage in what is called the Josephine tent, chatting in French with his brother Serge as a frenzy builds around them.

The models are having their pouts painted, leaning up against their grungy-looking boyfriends. Stylist Elizabeth Keister, clutching a Diet Coke, is anxiously instructing dressers: “Don’t rip the stockings when you’re putting the boots on.”

At 7 p.m., when the show is scheduled to start, the chairs flanking the runway are less than half full. Surprisingly, one of the few people in place is Vogue Editor Anna Wintour, the absolute goddess of the New York fashion world in her trademark sunglasses.

Azria sneaks a look as the show director tells him how to take his runway bow.

“Whatever you do don’t walk to the end,” says the director. “It takes too long and people want to leave. Fast.”

Azria, in a collarless black DK Men’s suit, seems disappointed but listens dutifully. “I want to do the right thing,” he says, eyes still fixed on the front row filled with the Vogue masthead including publisher Ron Galotti.

(An insider later explains that the BCBG show was a command performance for top editors, not so much because they were eager to see the clothes but because the California company, with a $1-million marketing budget, is a regular advertiser. “Whoring,” the insider says, summing up the staff’s role at this and many other big advertisers’ shows.)

By 7:15 Azria is madly fiddling with the monitor that will allow him to watch his own show.

By 7:20 the models are lining up, leaving a trail of assistants and cigarette butts.

It’s 7:25 and suddenly the hair spray engulfs the backstage area as every dresser takes aim at a model. Azria, still holding the portable phone, seems oblivious to the smell. He is already breathless.

“It’s 7:30,” he explodes, “30 minutes late. I’m dying back here. Turn on the monitor. Please.”

He heads into the tent but spins around when someone screams: “It’s working Max!” At that moment, the music starts pumping and the girls start walking.

“Finally,” cries Azria, and he and his wife, who by this time is shaking an Evian bottle as if she’s making a martini, kneel before the monitor to watch their future unfold. When the reception proves fuzzy, Azria borrows Serge’s sunglasses and sneaks into the standing room area. “Great,” he sighs.

By 7:50 Azria is surrounded by well-wishers--the editors, the assistants and his own staff looking exhausted but thrilled by their taste of the New York runway, a la “Unzipped.”

“Two months of work to prepare for 20 minutes,” says Nicole Krutzman, the relentlessly cheery marketing director for BCBG. Her eyes rimmed red from exhaustion, she adds: “I’m ready to go home.”