What’d they expect? Nobody walks in L.A.
The model called Olga has long, lustrous brown hair, legs up to her ears, and peaceful, cerulean blue eyes that could tame even the haughtiest fashion editor midtantrum. Los Angeles dress designer Kevan Hall needs 30 models for his spring fashion show and he’s gazing wistfully at Olga’s glossy photo.
“Please, God,” he murmurs on Day 1 of his show’s runway casting session, “let her be able to walk.”
A gaily clad assistant barks a command from somewhere beyond; Olga trots into the main office of Hall’s Beverly Boulevard atelier and flashes those impossibly blue peepers. Hall’s shoulders soften. The sun seems to shine a little brighter through the windows. Then Olga demonstrates her catwalk.
To say it’s a mix between a trot and a galumph, seasoned with a pinch of frog march, really doesn’t say enough. Just know that Hall’s face drops and the clouds gather again outside the window.
“Thank you, next,” he sighs. Turning to a visitor, he adds, “We’ll go through three days of this until we find models who can actually move. I need a glide.”
Catwalking: Yes, it’s that complicated.
It’s Fashion Week in Los Angeles again as spring collections debut Sunday at Smashbox Studios. But in a city stocked with twentysomething women of enviable proportion, designers say they’re struggling to find models who can sell a $4,000 gown in less than 60 feet of runway. Unlike New York and Paris, which each boast top-notch gait coaches -- yes, people get paid to teach others how to walk -- designers complain that Los Angeles lacks any runway gurus of real stature.
Compounding the city’s strut shortage, stylists say, are the competing fashion weeks in Europe, which siphon much talent away from Los Angeles; the irresistible acting bug, which distracts many local models from taking the time to practice a good glide; and a puny high-fashion economy compared to such meccas as Paris, Milan, London or New York. Unlike the living clothes hangers lucky or talented enough to work in a couture capital, Los Angeles models are often expected to work for “trade,” that is, in exchange for clothes rather than cash. And, designers lament, you get what you pay for.
“Slim pickings,” New York fashion wunderkind Kevin Johnn hisses of Los Angeles models. Johnn plans to show his new spring collection Monday at Culver City’s Smashbox Studios, the hub of L.A. Fashion Week. But despite a sponsorship deal with local agency Photogenix, casting won’t be easy, he says. “It’s just hard to find girls in L.A. They’re less experienced on the catwalk. The walk in L.A. isn’t as confident.”
As for local models, they say learning a good catwalk can take days, if not weeks, of practice. Even after years of experience on a runway, models say they routinely field acidic complaints.
“Better believe the designer is going to tell you whether you’re doing it right or wrong,” says Jasmine Dustin, who has modeled full time in Los Angeles for five years and is walking for the L.A.-based J. & Company denim label this season. According to a label publicist, finding decent walkers was so hard this year that the firm had to look within its own circle -- Dustin is the roommate of a J & Company executive.
“Designers will tell you right away, don’t do this, don’t do that,” Dustin says. Not that it gets any easier after all that instruction. Producers routinely post reminders backstage at fashion shows, hammering home the preferred style of walk -- “no hands on hips,” “no smiling” or, in the case of New York-based Heatherette, which occasionally shows in Los Angeles, “just have fun,” followed by several exclamation points. It isn’t that the models are stupid -- though it can sometimes appear that way, as when several hopefuls at the Hall casting session seemed unable to walk in the L shape he repeatedly requested. It’s that the often-exhausted women can work a half a dozen shows a day, each requiring a different strut.
Some clients prefer models to place one foot precisely in front of the other, a literal “cat walk.” Others like their models to accentuate hips by crossing their legs in front of one another. There’s the “horse trot,” popularized by towering super-Brazilian Gisele Bundchen a few years ago. There’s the unlabeled, bouncier step preferred for casual wear, said to be demonstrated well by model Angela Lindvall. There’s the “slouch,” which took London by storm last year and left fashion writers bewildered. There’s the sulky, grungy walk involving glowering models with almost no hips. And there’s “the glide,” official gait of the $30,000 couturier.
“I try not to do that whole horse-trot thing,” says blond, 22-year-old Dustin, who has never had a walking coach. “Some girls just look like those little poodle dogs. I have no idea where they pick that up.... And some girls look like they’ve got their heads, like, halfway down their backs, and you’re not supposed to do that either.”
Physics of the catwalk
Generally, designers want a strut that makes the model transparent, if not well nigh invisible. Too much bounce in a step, too much lift to a leg, can make a dress look cheap or a jacket flow awkwardly -- disasters, given that the whole purpose of a fashion show is to dazzle retail buyers and Hollywood stylists with the garments, not the models.
“Some walks ruin the line of clothing,” says J. Alexander, a Paris-based runway coach and a judge on UPN’s “America’s Top Model,” on a visit to L.A. Alexander and New York’s Willi Ninja constitute the bulk of the industry’s catwalk brain trust, designers say. “When a skirt is too high you can’t kick your legs as high,” he says. “If your legs are not very long you can’t have that same stride as a taller model; maybe you can’t lift your knees to a 45-degree angle. Maybe you can only do 20.”
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule in fashion; if Naomi Campbell wants to scissor-walk down a runway, clients would be pressing their luck to instruct her otherwise. But for the most part, designers say, a desirable strut calls for two steady feet, ideally size 8 to 10, that never rise higher than 4 inches off the ground. Knees should bend less than 90 degrees -- a common mistake that makes goose steppers out of models, Dustin says; 45 degrees is much better. Arms, ideally, have minimal swing.
Complicating things even more: Walking styles, like clothes themselves, go through fashion trends. Two or three years ago, designers coveted Bundchen’s horse stomp. That rage has passed, yet newer models, particularly those from the Eastern bloc, are still marching around at casting sessions, designers say.
The preferred step these days? The glide. Hall calls it “walking like you’re in Europe -- just a beautiful woman walking.”
“You need to be able to stretch your hips forward, have your head and shoulders go back -- but keep your chin forward,” says New York designer Richie Rich, one half of the Heatherette label, which recently debuted its colorful, whimsical creations at Kitson on Robertson Boulevard.
Supermodel Campbell -- generally acknowledged as having the best walk in the business -- has prowled the runways several times for Heatherette. Listening to fashionistas talk about Campbell’s walk is a little like hearing the deeds of Hercules recited in a New York accent.
“When she was in our last show,” Heatherette public relations director Aimee Phillips says, “she came out without even ... I can’t explain it. It sounds like such a stupid thing to say, but she just slid in there, into position. Like, here I am. I am Naomi Campbell.
“You think that that’s a joke,” Phillips says, “but it’s so, so shockingly complicated.”
Now, everyone’s a critic
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, models carried a rarefied aura. When Linda Evangelista boasted that she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day, Americans marveled. With the advent of mainstream TV fashion shows like the Victoria’s Secret jiggle-fests on CBS, the art of the catwalk became less obscure. Viewers took one look at Campbell’s scissor-walk and realized why designers let her throw tantrums.
Now, thanks to the 24-hour-a-day fashion show that is the Style Network, and Tyra Banks’ popular “America’s Next Top Model,” in its fifth season, there is a plethora of catwalk wisdom at our disposal. Millions of viewers have tuned in to watch Alexander teach girls named Jayla and Bre to walk as if they too wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. The public’s appreciation for a good glide has reached an all-time high.
Back at Hall’s atelier, the designer is starting to look a little piqued; his casting session is amounting to, at best, a mixed bag.
An assistant barks for a new hopeful, and in walks Karen, an amazon of a blond who seems a bit like what would happen if the Sears Tower had a love child with Kirsten Dunst. Hall lets her take three steps toward him. Instantly, the model transforms from merely a tall human to a kind of mermaid, gliding across the Pacific in a piece of ready-to-wear luxury. Halfway down her imaginary runway, she seems to disappear, leaving the blue creation she’s wearing to levitate across the room on its own.
Hall stops her midstride.
“Yes,” he yells. “Book her.
“And Karen,” he adds as the model walks away. “Don’t leave town.”
