This Double Take Isn’t Funny

The most telling moment at the CaliforniaMart Designer Awards ceremony at the Beverly Hilton on Sunday night wasn’t when this year’s winner, the popular and talented Trina Turk, strode to the podium to accept her crystal trophy. Nor was it when Ron Herman shared an award for the impact his Ron Herman Fred Segal Melrose store has had on fashion in Los Angeles.

In an evening rich with signs of artistic risk-taking and entrepreneurial bravado, when many of the presenters and recipients spoke about the growing importance of home-grown creativity, it was a segment of the fashion show displaying the work of the Designer of the Year nominees that sent a chill through the veins of anyone who took the proceedings seriously.

Models wearing body-hugging gowns of shiny silver Mylar hand-painted with flowers swept fringed shawls behind them. The gowns, by the design team of XOXO, were striking, featuring the clever clash of modern materials and folkloric accessories. They were just the sort of bold styles that set trends and win awards. At least, they did when near-mirror images of them first appeared in a Dolce & Gabbana show in Milan more than six months ago.

The team’s presence, even only as a nominee, provided a clear demonstration of why the CaliforniaMart Designer Awards continually battle for respect and attention. The CaliforniaMart awards do not have the status of New York’s Council of Fashion Designers of America annual awards or the upstart VH1 Fashion Awards, which, with their emphasis on pop culture, reach out to a wide audience.

The CaliforniaMart awards aren’t just the victims of a perennial fashion second-city complex plaguing Los Angeles (although there is some of that). They aren’t crippled by price snobbery dictating that designers are people who make expensive clothes (although that attitude is persistent in some quarters).

It is the inclusion of commercial considerations in the selection of nominees that diminishes the awards’ ability to bring recognition to deserving California designers.

No one would argue that the XOXO dresses should not exist. With $100 million in annual sales, the company has built a following by delivering fresh styles faster than a teenager gets over a crush. When these Italian look-alikes appear in stores, priced less than a Dolce & Gabbana sock, they will make many a girl’s day. But they are unabashed imitations--in spirit, shape, fabrication and detail.

Nominations going to such facile mimics are what have kept the California awards in their place, so to speak, by perpetuating the idea that innovation doesn’t live here.

“For a struggling new designer to see that with all that company’s resources, all they can do is such a blatant rip-off is really depressing,” said one young designer, who voiced his reaction on the condition of anonymity. “It really lowered the standard of what the awards are all about. The awards are a wonderful opportunity to recognize what’s going on here, and it’s important that the people who represent California be the right people,” he said.

The awards were inaugurated in 1983, abandoned in 1990, then resumed in 1994 with a new category for rising star. No grandiose vision of fashion world domination attended their conception.

“The awards exist primarily to promote West Coast designers, to give some of the people here the credit that they deserve,” said Corky Newman, former CEO of the CaliforniaMart. “We just wanted to be what we were, not to compete nationally.”

A National Boost for Local Designers

California designers do compete in the national marketplace, however, and in a multistep process, they hope the awards can help them hold their own against peers based in Europe and New York.

Experience has shown that when editors of fashion magazines read about the awards in trade publications, they’re often moved to seek out a new designer. They might feature some of the designer’s clothes in their pages. Then store buyers, impressed by what they see in Mademoiselle, Elle or Vogue, make the effort to visit the designer’s showroom.

“From the nomination, you get a lot of attention you wouldn’t normally get,” award winner Turk said. “Most of it is from trade publications, but the more people see the name, the more it helps it to register, sooner or later. We’ve had a store look at our line five times, and then they see us in a magazine. That seems to legitimize us, and finally they place an order.”

Sometimes the effect of a nomination is less direct. But William Beranek, whose William B line was nominated for Designer of the Year in 1997 and 1998, confirmed, “Every bit of press attention that you get helps.”

Which is one reason awards exist, from the Oscars of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to the Nobel prizes. With publicity a more or less distant objective, trophies and, one would think, nominations traditionally go to artistic visionaries. Many competent architects design solid, functional houses that people are happy to live in. But the prestigious Pritzker Prize for architecture is given to designers whose buildings change the cultural landscape.

If major awards in a number of fields have a taste for originality in common, they also share criticism for being influenced by insider politics.

The political current running under the CaliforniaMart awards is as obvious as its name. With the mart sponsoring the awards, it would be expected that mart tenants could muscle their way into the nominations. In fact, the mart has been remarkably generous in taking on the leadership of the scattered Los Angeles fashion industry, nurturing young talent regardless of their address.

Eduardo Lucero, winner of last year’s Rising Star Award, operates out of a Beverly Boulevard boutique. He said, “The mart goes out of their way to help designers in Los Angeles, not just their people.”

Some tenants of the mart question why part of their rent goes for the administration of the awards if outsiders are reaping the glory. Since nominees are suggested by a 12-person council of buyers and fashion journalists, and voted on by 40 stylists, buyers and journalists, it’s possible that a slate including no mart tenants could be offered.

The mart has made an effort to refute charges of pressure from big companies to be included by stipulating that nominees don’t have to lease space at the Mart. Yet when commercial powerhouses like mart tenant XOXO are nominated, questions of fairness arise.

XOXO President and CEO Gregg Fiene defends his nomination. “We’re interpreting styles and trends the way a lot of other companies are, but we don’t charge $180 for a pair of pants, so people think we’re not designers. Look at every designer in the world. [Jean-Paul] Gaultier is copying Prada. Prada goes to the vintage stores. So do we.”

Putting Emphasis on Creativity

The rules of New York’s Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards state that nominees for its awards don’t have to be CFDA members. But a significant difference between its awards and the CaliforniaMart’s is the CFDA’s insistence on keeping the focus on creativity.

CFDA executive director Fern Mallis explained, “We’ve been criticized by manufacturers who do a large volume of business for not recognizing them, but our awards are for the true creative talents, people who pushed the envelope and made everyone stop and think. There is no commercial overtone to our awards, and no reason why someone should win if they don’t deserve to for artistic reasons.”

The debate over commercialism affecting the awards process has a long history.

The first awards to acknowledge American designers were the Coty American Fashion Critics Awards, given annually from 1943 through 1975. The purpose of the awards, as conceived by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, was to draw attention to the originality, scope and power of American designers, and to bring them to equal prominence with their European counterparts.

California designer James Galanos won in 1954 and 1956, then received the Coty Hall of Fame award in 1959. Rudi Gernreich won Cotys in 1960, 1963, 1966 and the Hall of Fame honor in 1967.

“It’s difficult for a West Coast designer to get a national award. It would have to be a forceful talent to make everyone take notice, someone like Gernreich, who really was an extraordinary bright light,” said Edith Raymond Locke, former editor in chief of Mademoiselle. “The Cotys were criticized for being too commercial. I think what happens is that eventually you run out of names. There aren’t enough people who have enough influence to warrant an award, so the same people get it over and over, and that makes others unhappy.”

Gernreich and Galanos were also acknowledged by the CFDA, which began presenting its awards in 1981. Richard Tyler is the only other California designer to win a CFDA award. In 1993, he received the Perry Ellis award, the CFDA’s version of the Rising Star. The next year he won the women’s wear Designer of the Year prize, and in 1995 he got the Perry Ellis award again when he branched out into menswear.

All the award programs have been chided for celebrating designers who turned out to be shooting stars. CFDA’s Mallis maintains that just because a designer crashes and burns commercially doesn’t invalidate his or her contribution.

“Staying power has come into our discussion in some cases, but the awards are a time capsule,” she said. “Each year should be about what that year was about. There are a lot of people who have won awards who have gone out of business. Fashion is unpredictable.”

If design competitions are to maintain artistic integrity, many argue, trying to predict a designer’s longevity can’t be a consideration. CaliforniaMart Designer of the Year Award nominees must “demonstrate a consistent standard of excellence in design innovation, retail performance and quality workmanship.” All that means is that the designer is selling merchandise at the time nominations are made.

That retail performance requirement would seem to guarantee longevity, but not in the volatile fashion industry, where $100-million firms can go under as easily as one-man T-shirt operations. One day a high-flying designer like Isaac Mizrahi can be chatting with David Letterman on national TV and collecting air kisses from supermodels, and the next he’s out of business.

Supporters of artistic vision reason that “retail performance” is no measure of design talent.

XOXO’s Fiene disagrees. “What is a designer? Is a designer just someone who makes costumes, or is it someone who makes things that people really want to wear? A designer to me is someone whose product is worn by people. We make it, you like it, you buy it. That means we earned it.”

Turk talks more readily about her design philosophy than about what sells. The 37-year-old graduate of the University of Washington founded her own business three years ago with her husband, fashion stylist Jonathan Skow, and Lynn Lee, whom she met while working at Cole of California. She names Audrey Hepburn as her muse, an icon whose clearly defined image makes Turk’s point of view easy to understand.

“We don’t jump on every trend bandwagon that comes along,” she said. “Some looks are right for our label, and some aren’t. We don’t do gauzy, drapey things. We do crisp, straightforward clothes. My designs are based on classics, so even though I’m aware of trends, I don’t do anything you’ll be sick of in six months. We do traditional American sportswear looks, and with a basis in classicism, that ensures that we’ll be around for the long haul.”