Runway collision
With a French tennis champion, a heavy metal rocker wife and a B-list actress all staging runway shows, Los Angeles fashion week, which begins Sunday, is starting to look like the California recall election.
Adding to the circus atmosphere: After years of striving for a formidable fashion week, L.A. now has two, and they are competing. More media and buyers than ever are scheduled to attend the spring shows here, which end a month of catwalk presentations in New York, London, Milan and Paris. But the dueling venues -- one in Culver City and the other downtown -- have left many fashionistas scratching their highlighted heads.
The larger event, “Mercedes-Benz Shows L.A.,” is showcasing the work of 34 designers on four runways at the Downtown L.A. Standard Hotel and the University Club nearby. IMG, the international entertainment and sports marketing giant responsible for fashion weeks in New York, Brazil, India and Singapore, is producing these shows for the second time.
Meanwhile at their Smashbox Studios in Culver City, the glitzy photographer brothers Dean and Davis Factor, heirs to Max, will host shows for 25 designers. This decidedly more indie event is expected to include a few bigger names -- Jeremy Scott, Jennifer Nicholson and As Four -- who are reprising shows they presented last month in New York.
The complaining has already started: Two venues with overlapping schedules dilutes the concept of L.A. Fashion Week, and makes it more difficult for up-and-coming talent -- the life force of the relatively small fashion scene here -- to attract a sizable audience.
“They have to get this together,” said Yvonne Greene, an L.A.-based designer scout for New York’s Henri Bendel. “From a buyer’s standpoint, it’s impossible. They are doing a disservice to designers and to the true people in L.A. who need to cover this stuff.”
It’s too early to tell about former French tennis star Delphine Priest; Susan Holmes, the wife of Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagen or “Joe Dirt” actress Jaime Pressly. But there are several promising designers who are generating buzz this season, most notably Louis Verdad, Madonna’s latest fashion favorite, Richard Tyler protege Erica Davies and swimwear designer Ashley Paige.
Last season, Madonna’s L.A.-based stylist, Arianne Phillips, first noticed Verdad’s 1940s-inspired suits in a group show. Since then, the designer has created several looks for the pop star, including the cashmere tuxedo she wore last month at the MTV Music Awards.
“Madonna is an icon, so it was a little like meeting the president of the United States,” Verdad, 37, said this week at his studio above a restaurant in Silver Lake. “We invited her to the show. She can’t make it, but she sent a card.”
The son of a grocery distributor, Verdad and his nine siblings grew up in Guanajuato, Mexico. He studied fashion in Chicago at the Ray Vogue College of Design, and still prefers to cut his own patterns, making sure that each arm hole moves just so.
He worked first in Atlanta and then in L.A., where he moved 13 years ago, “I’ve done it all -- large sizes, kids, swimwear, you name it,” said Verdad, inspecting a model dressed in a sky blue, vintage-inspired dress with cap sleeves and buttons down the front. Launched 18 months ago, his line costs from $79 for a poplin top to $750 for a suit, and sells in about 40 stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Noni in L.A. and Belle Gray in Sherman Oaks. Verdad, who is self-financed, hopes his first solo show on Thursday at the Standard will attract financial backers.
“When I think of this collection, I think of a woman who before she leaves the house, looks at the mirror, touches her lipstick and arches her eyebrow to make sure she’s perfect,” Verdad explained to Gregory Arlt, the MAC makeup artist who will design the look for the show. “Maybe next season she’ll go to the supermarket with her hair down, but this season her lover is very rich.”
Runway alternative
On the other side of town in her sun-drenched West Hollywood penthouse apartment, Erica Davies had to be finished with her collection weeks ago. Because instead of spending money she didn’t have on a runway show, the designer enlisted a producer friend to shoot an eight-minute video of her first line. It will be screened several times Wednesday night at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary.
“One of the reasons I moved away from the runway is that a lot of times it’s more about who’s in the front row than the clothes,” said Davies, 32, a native of Wales who graduated from London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in the same class as Stella McCartney.
Davies is one of several designers to have struck out on their own after working for Richard Tyler, the reigning godfather of L.A. fashion. Her clothes have clean lines inspired no doubt by Tyler’s flair for tailoring. But they also have a youthful edge, and quirky details that may have been influenced by another former boss, Marc Jacobs. Nail heads, for instance, dot the open armholes of a soft violet jersey gown and on some dresses she uses knots instead of buttons as fasteners. Her reasonably priced line, designed to appeal to younger customers, ranges from $110 to $280 at Henri Bendel in New York. Hopefully, Davies said, an L.A. store is next.
A ‘70s craze
At a studio on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, Ashley Paige was scrutinizing a ridiculously perfect model in a brown knit bathing suit that’s see-through except for a few, well-placed pieces of mesh. Paige, 33, who is known for knits that can survive a dunk in the pool, wasn’t satisfied.
“What if it we took out the mesh and it was just bare?” she asked her design assistant Michelle Conrow. “Like that bikini designer who got famous for doing the topless bathing suit?”
“Rudi Gernreich?” Conrow offered.
“Yeah! It would be like our 1970s version,” Paige responded, giving her assistant an enthusiastic high-five.
A petite blond, Paige is obsessed with the 1970s. She has a poster of Jacqueline Smith hanging in her studio, and she drives a muscle car.
Paige studied fashion design and marketing at the American College for Applied Arts in San Diego. When she couldn’t get her foot in the door, in New York, she moved back to Southern California to do what she knew best -- itsy-bitsy bathing suits, some so small they fit in the palm of your hand. She set out to revive the classic 1970s knit bikini, and make it durable.
After much trial-and-error, she hit on a workable weave and made her first sale in 2001. Soon after, one of her bikinis was featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. This year, she has the cover of the SI calendar, and her suits (about $250) are in Saks Fifth Avenue, Tracey Ross, Jigsaw and Xin in L.A.
She hopes a successful solo runway show on Thursday at the Standard -- her first -- will allow her to branch into Lycra swimwear, which is cheaper and has more mass appeal than knits.
Then, her dream is to upgrade to a house with a swimming pool. “I mean, hello! I have to have a swimming pool,” she said. “Oh yeah, and this flying coach thing is getting really old too.”
