Fashion’s X-Factors
MODELS and modelizers, tabloid princesses trailing paparazzi, drag queens, freebie hounds and miscellaneous connoisseurs of the scene will gather in a parking lot in Culver City tonight for the opening runway show of the Spring 2007 Mercedes-Benz Los Angeles Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios.
Of course, Davis Factor and his brother Dean will be there. They own Smashbox Studios and Smashbox Cosmetics (a fashion week sponsor) and co-produce the five-day event with IMG, the sports-agents-turned-entertainment-and-media-colossus that’s behind fashion weeks in New York and Miami. Fashion week at Smashbox isn’t a newborn anymore the way it was three years ago when the brothers held their initial show for designer Eduardo Lucero. “The first season we had one show,” Davis says. “The second season was 12 shows. The third season was 24. That’s when we knew we had something.”
It still isn’t clear exactly what that something is. The word on L.A. fashion week, an unequal blend of art, commerce and celebration, is that it keeps getting better. That makes it a little like the kid who wins the Most Improved Camper award at summer camp -- the praise doesn’t tell you much about how fast a swimmer he is or whether he can build a campfire.
With Smashbox Studios as headquarters, the event is far less chaotic than it was a few years ago, when shows held all over the city were judged too bacchanalian and buyers and press complained that their professional needs weren’t being considered. Celebrities in attendance have increased coverage in Us Weekly et al., but New York-based fashion magazines whose editors travel to Milan, London and Paris still tend to snub L.A. and rely on their West Coast staffs to survey the market here. And notably, many local designers choose to show in New York after they’ve achieved some success.
Designer Jenni Kayne staged runway shows in L.A. for four seasons before joining New York fashion week. “I love L.A., and it’s my home,” she says, “but to take my business to the next level and have my designs seen by all the buyers and the highest caliber of press, I had to show in New York.”
But even as L.A. fashion week struggles for the sort of recognition that will benefit designers, Smashbox wins, its glamour quotient enhanced. “Our goal is to grow fashion week,” Davis says. “We’re trying to light a creative fire in this city with fashion and give designers a platform that never existed before.” Davis’ enthusiasm is unmistakable, and his intentions may well be civic-minded, but fashion week also represents a marketing bonanza for Smashbox Cosmetics. In the best of circumstances, what’s good for Los Angeles is good for Smashbox, and vice versa.
Davis is a lean, fit man of 46, with close-set hazel eyes and short, graying hair. He has the athletic affect of an aging surfer dude, which he is, making him appear simultaneously boyish and weathered. There will be nearly 40 shows this season, and with IMG on board, he is not directly responsible for all the elements necessary to make fashion week work -- music, celebrities, edgy designers, top models, influential members of the media and trendsetting buyers. But he thinks of himself as a host, and he tries to influence the ingredients that can turn a glorified trade show into a cultural event.
The first season shows were held at Smashbox, he arranged for Velvet Revolver (Guns N’ Roses minus Axl Rose) to play for a swimsuit show and called on friends who rule L.A.’s nightlife to pack the room with a spirited crowd. He can delegate more now than he used to. “If there’s a problem, I’m wearing a headset and I can call security,” he says. “But I don’t have to fix it myself.”
Details matter. The last thing Davis wants is a flub that could be a buzz kill. “We’re such a groovy event,” he says. “At the same time, we’re very organized, so the buyers and press and VIPs are taken care of really well. I want things to run smoothly, but it can still be fun.”
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Photographer’s POV
ANYONE who’s known Davis since he was a popular kid at Beverly Hills High would trust him to make fun happen. As a 26-year-old graduate of the Art Center College of Design beginning a career as a commercial photographer, he envisioned the photo studio he wanted to create -- a haven where artists could be comfortable, be happy and have access to whatever they needed -- equipment and props, sure, but also intangibles such as a sense of community.
“Before we opened,” he says, “a photographer would rent a studio in L.A. and basically get a key, and that was it. You never saw anybody. If you needed anything, you had to run to the store to get it.” The first person hired was Phillip Weingarten, a chef Davis had known since high school. Weingarten designed the studio with room for a kitchen.
“When we conceptualized the business,” Weingarten recalls, “we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if a photographer flew in and all he had to do was show up?’ We’d provide cameras and lights, have great food available, and we’d have a wealth of information on hair stylists, makeup artists, wardrobe people and anything else that might be needed.”
Davis opened the studio in 1990, in a former boat showroom in an industrial district of Santa Monica and called it Smashbox, after the accordion-like device once used to shield a camera’s lens. Dean, four years younger than his brother and now president and chief executive officer of Smashbox, came to work the day after he graduated from USC’s business school. His help was more than welcome. Six months after the studio opened, it was booked seven days a week, 24 hours a day. In eight more months, the brothers were looking for a larger space.
In 1992, they moved to their current location, a warehouse in Culver City. The facility now has six studios, including one equipped for sound, where music videos and commercials are shot.
The house that Davis and Dean Factor built grew into a hydra-headed business that has had a significant effect on Los Angeles. Their studio took off just as actresses were elbowing models out of advertisements and off the covers of magazines. With celebrities more sought-after, it was natural that L.A. would become more in demand for photo shoots. But if the photographers, who were often stars themselves, didn’t like working here, they would have insisted that everyone get on a plane and fly to New York, or Costa del Sol, or wherever their muse dictated.
That they felt at home at Smashbox helped L.A. attain its status as a preferred place to capture the end of the 20th century in advertising and pop culture. Bob Dylan’s most recent Rolling Stone cover portrait by Matthew Rolston? Shot at Smashbox. Kirsten Dunst by Annie Leibovitz for September Vogue? Ditto. While last March’s Vanity Fair cover featuring Tom Ford with Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley in the nude was a work in progress in one Smashbox studio, Davis photographed Ford’s replacement at Gucci for German Vogue next door.
The availability of tasty, good-looking food has been integral to the studio’s success. When a crew is well fed, it makes for a better day. Conversely, if Weingarten’s Good Food catering wasn’t satisfying a few dozen stars gathered to shoot a Vanity Fair cover, multiplied by a number of handlers and assistants, the behind-the-scenes picture wouldn’t be pretty.
“Whenever you go to Smashbox for a photo shoot,” designer Lucero says, “it feels like you’re in a party atmosphere. It’s conducive to hanging out, and you make connections with photographers, other designers, makeup artists and graphic designers. It’s ... like Andy Warhol’s Factory. It has a nice social vibe.”
Paradoxically, a need for privacy is constant, and sometimes an entourage includes bodyguards. No starlet who’s locked herself in the bathroom wants word of her tantrum to spread. Conviviality can alternate with intrigue: Photographers might accuse competitors of ripping off an idea, stealing an assistant or wooing a favorite model.
Davis is more likely to laugh than panic. “I like the friction that sometimes happens,” he says. “It’s hot, and I always knew something good would come out of it.”
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Always glamour first
DAVIS seems born for his job: His great-grandfather was cosmetic company founder Max Factor, and his great-uncles were legendary Hollywood makeup artists. Inventing the persona of a cool, friendly party boy to serve his professional roles would have been genius. But he really is that guy, a voracious international club hopper (until a few years ago), a man who loves women and wants them to look beautiful.
In the studio earlier this month, he wears his photographer hat to shoot actress Izabella Miko for the invitation to Louis Verdad’s fashion week show. Here is the studio as laboratory. Miko has been coiffed and painted in the mode of Marie Antoinette. Test shots reveal that her teased and powdered hairdo, magnificent in profile, looks flat head-on. Davis suggests an adjustment and asks that more blush be applied to her dramatically paled face. “We are in the business of making women look glamorous,” he says. “That’s very personal to me.”
Behind the jaunty frontman is Dean, whose brief, tempestuous engagement to Shannen Doherty in the early ‘90s earned him a place in tabloid hell. Although both Factors play golf, Dean looks like a golfer, complete with a generous stomach. Friends say they complement each other well. Dean worries about the bottom line and is happy to let Davis be more public. Davis would rather not have to deal with business. Last month Smashbox announced a merger with Quixote, a company with nine stages in Hollywood and Glendale and a fleet of production vehicles.
With Quixote managing the studios’ combined assets, Davis will devote more attention to his photography and fashion week and Dean will concentrate on Smashbox Cosmetics and Photogenics, their modeling and beauty agency. Studios rent from $1,400 to $1,900 a day, yet makeup is the most lucrative part of their business. “We make as much money in cosmetics in two weeks as we do all year in the studio,” Dean says.
Smashbox Cares, the company’s philanthropic arm, donates to a variety of charities, including Covenant House California, the Rainforest Foundation and Surfers Healing, a free surf camp for autistic children.
The makeup line was founded in 1996. “Our makeup artists were telling us, ‘Do it. Do a line,’ ” Davis says. “It made sense. We are Factors.” After weathering a rocky start, Smashbox Cosmetics will have $125 million in retail sales this year.
The image of being involved with fashion, celebrities and photographers benefits the makeup line just as a Hollywood connection sold Max Factor cosmetics decades ago (the company was bought by Norton Simon in 1978). Every aspect of the Smashbox empire has been similarly synergistic. The more important fashion week is, the more shows and events held at Smashbox, the more opportunities exist for Smashbox models and makeup artists.
But beyond synergy, the secret sauce Davis, Dean and Weingarten brought to Smashbox is their power as what writer Malcolm Gladwell calls social connectors: naturally gregarious beings who move easily among many groups. Twenty years ago, they counted hip photographers, artists, restaurant owners and nightclub impresarios among their friends. Weingarten was co-chef at Helena’s, the star-studded Hollywood club, in its heyday. “We were born and raised here and had great resources,” he says. “When we started Smashbox, word spread through our social circles.”
Now that Dean is a husband and father of two, his social life has inevitably changed. Davis and Weingarten, like many of their friends, are still single, yet they say they have grown disenchanted with the after-dark scene they were long part of.
“I’m going through a club menopause,” Davis says. “For the last two years, I stopped wanting to go out and party.” He still attends the club openings of friends occasionally, but he’s more likely to be seen at a Lakers or Dodgers game -- he has season tickets -- and two to three mornings a week he’s up at 5:30 to surf before work.
Don’t tell any impressionable youth entranced by dreams of a glamorous, carefree existence, but even party boys sometimes grow up, especially when they learn how satisfying achievement can be. The party at Smashbox continues, but as the Factor brothers have taken on serious partners and expanded their empire, fashion week could mature too. And in the L.A. way, it’ll still be a babe.
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