In L.A. Fashion, Celebrity Trumps Couture
Outside the tent at Los Angeles Fashion Week, a guy in white angel wings waves C-, D- and E-list celebrities from the valet line to a postage-stamp-size photo backdrop. Mike Tyson arrives with a pair of blond playmates, flashing a gold-toothed grin. Internet pinup queen Cindy Margolis puffs out her chest for the cameras. Golden Globe winner Angela Bassett almost sneaks by, dressed down in geeky glasses and jeans.
Inside, sponsor tables offer some of Los Angeles’ major food groups. On the left are fruit-flavored waters, on the right, Atkins bars and tequila. And in the middle, a Mercedes-Benz, which is being raffled off.
Out on the runway, the audience is jockeying for a better seat to see skimpy halter tops designed by actress Jaime Pressly and bias-cut gowns by QVC favorite Bradley Bayou.
L.A. Fashion Week may not tell you much about fashion, but it does tell you a lot about Los Angeles’ celebrity culture. In a little more than three years, the runway shows have evolved from an embarrassment -- held in cocktail bars and downtown alleys -- to a professional operation centered at Smashbox Studios in Culver City. This season, the event has come into its own, attracting hundreds of people a day and even more at night, when the real party and after-parties begin. The comparisons with fashion capitals New York, Milan and Paris have faded away, and L.A. Fashion Week has embraced what it is. The shows here are less about what’s going to land in department stores in a few months than about opening a trading floor for gossip and a spectacular arena for the photo op.
At L.A. Fashion Week, which wrapped up Friday with the first L.A. Fashion Awards, the front row isn’t filled with masthead queens like Vogue’s Anna Wintour, or socialites of the Aerin Lauder breed. Instead, there are reality show stars, stylists, model groupies and Hollywood rich kids. Here, anyone can design a collection. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve apprenticed with Oscar de la Renta for five years or received the blessing of Wintour. If you have made a bikini for Paris Hilton or you are the wife of a 1960s rock icon, that’s enough to jump-start a business. Because this is the town of fast breaks and second chances.
And in L.A., the fashion industry is not driven by seasonal trends and magazine covers but by fashion blips created by paparazzo shots and celebrity endorsements -- a snap of Kate Hudson wearing your Ugg boots can mean you’ve got a hit on your hands.
Unlike New York, Paris or Milan, Los Angeles is not about defining the looks for spring or fall. What comes down those runways turns up in the most exclusive boutiques, and it drives millions of dollars’ worth of handbag, shoe and cosmetics sales. In L.A., the shows are more about celebrating the industry and reveling in all of its idiosyncrasies.
The real business is accomplished in the Smashbox Studios VIP lounge, where it’s all about the schmooze -- sponsors schmoozing celebrities, plying them with their goods. Celebrities schmoozing designers and sponsors, who will supply them with anything from baskets of cosmetics to a red-carpet gown. Designers schmoozing pretty much everybody, hoping for some exposure. Self-promotion? But of course.
Runway-side at the Antik Denim show Tuesday night, Jason Davis, the grandson of the late Hollywood mogul Marvin Davis, is being trailed by a VH-1 camera crew, which is taping his every move for a reality show pilot. The ushers, mostly local fashion students, are losing their minds. No one remembered to number the seats, so guests thought it was first come, first served. As casual as it all seems, an invitation and a seating assignment are needed to attend the shows, though there are plenty of crashers, usually people calling themselves “stylists.”
And to top it all off, security is in a tizzy because someone pulled a knife in the VIP lounge when another VIP cut into the bathroom line. Apparently, somebody looked at somebody else “funny.” It was enough to send Los Angeles police officers running.
Antik is the denim line du jour, known for heavily embellished back pocket designs. The man behind it is L.A. garment industry heavyweight Paul Guez, who has clothed a cornucopia of behinds in blue, starting with the Sassoon brand in the 1970s.
Because there are no Calvins, Ralphs or Donnas showing at L.A. Fashion Week, reporters from Women’s Wear Daily and California Apparel News and junior editors from Vogue and Elle trade designer information like stock insiders.
“Elsie Katz, that’s designed by the wife of Bean of ‘Kevin & Bean,’ you know, the KROQ show?” one editor offers.
“Kevin Johnn, wasn’t he a finalist on ‘Project Runway?’ Or maybe he was the winner.”
“Shay Todd, she made the bathing suit Paris Hilton wore in that Carl’s Jr. commercial.”
Photographers are tethered to their cameras or their laptops, downloading runway and celebrity images to the Internet and the world. Zap! There goes Jason Alexander, who introduces himself as Britney Spears’ ex-husband. Zing! It’s Marla Maples. (Did she ever marry Donald Trump?) Boing! Off goes Brooke Burke, the former Frederick’s of Hollywood model, at another super-cool event brought to you by the wonderful world of digital photography before anyone has a chance to think about whether it was really cool or not.
“Try not to put too many in,” a photographer says, coming in from shooting Jaime Pressly’s first runway show for her clothing line, J’aime. “Because if you look up ‘ugly’ in the dictionary, you’ll find those photos.” (Luckily, Pressly has her hit TV show “My Name Is Earl” to fall back on.)
In the VIP smoking area outside Smashbox Studios, four guys walk in through the side entrance wearing hand-painted vintage blazers. Together they are known as the design collective Elmer Ave. They also have a band and a skateboard company, and live in a house in Hollywood with a skateboard ramp in the frontyard. They are not showing a collection at Smashbox or even attending a show. They’ve just stopped by to schmooze.
Elmer Ave. is a menswear brand, but women like it too, designer Jonny Day tells a reporter. “Ellen DeGeneres is really into us right now. And we’ve been doing a lot of stuff for ‘The L Word.’ ” He stubs out his cigarette, tosses back his tequila cocktail and moves on to the next opportunity.
Models scurry around through backstage entrances. Before the Buffalo Jeans show, Maude styling duo Meritt Elliott and Emily Current are primping and accessorizing “the girls.” “OK, you got to rock it tonight,” Current says, putting a necklace on a brunet dressed in jeans and elfin boots.
“Her name is Shay, Shay Londre, with an accent over the ‘e,’ ” the model’s agent offers. Then the beauty speaks: “I’m from Sacramento, but I live in Paris.”
Forget models as flat-chested clothes hangers. In L.A., the girls have breasts, big ones. On the runway at Antik Denim, they are hanging all out, under tribal necklaces and feather collars, flower-shaped pasties and body paint -- anything to spice up a pair of jeans.
After a parade of flesh and a bit of denim, the lights go down and a mechanical bull is rolled onto the runway. A model in a Band-Aid-thin bandeau top and thong-sized jean shorts mounts the machine, which begins gyrating. Her arm is in the air, her legs are spread and she’s giving the photographers an eyeful. Hoots and hollers ring out from the crowd as the designers take their bows.
In less than 15 minutes, the show is over, and the plastic-fantastic, silicone-injected party moves into the lobby and on to the next one. The photographers rush to transmit their shots. And another star is born.
