Welcome to LA Fashion MONTH
The rooftop of The Standard hotel downtown is a long-time fashion favorite.
The date spread of the 70+ events on the fashion week calendar this season is either maddening or magical, depending on who you ask.
If you’re a visiting buyer or journalist interested in coming from out of town to cover the collections, you’re faced with a tough decision about when to come and what really counts. Next week? Market week? Rock week? And what about LA’s darlings of the social set who don’t show anywhere anyway save Paris, London and NY?
Of course if you’re a local fashion fan, there is no need to choose. In fact LA just got a little more fabulous for you with a rolling tide of fashion events from today through the glorious costume circus of Halloween. (Until we hear SOMETHING from elastic Alison at KPR, our Halloween picks remain the WeHo Halloween Carnaval on Santa Monica Boulevard at La Cienega, and the spirited afternoon costume parade at Otis College of Art and Design’s fashion campus downtown at 9th & Los Angeles.)
To mark the start of the official LA Fashion Week, Fashion Group International’s soiree takes place on the rooftop of The Standard Hotel downtown on October 12. This is followed by competing venue productions October 13-15: Downtown LA Fashion Week at the MOCA at the Geffen Contemporary and LA Fashion on Broadway at the Los Angeles Theatre. In this competition, we put our money at MOCA with Leanna Lewis, who introduced us to her production skills last season in a beautiful show of vintage couture courtesy of Decades. Not only is MOCA a venue of appropriate provenance for showcasing top creative work, Leanna’s also managed to curry favor and funds from city establishment.
To mark the end of the official LA Fashion Week, we’ve selected October 20, which is closing day of LA’s Market Week in the showrooms and trade shows in the Fashion District downtown. Why include Market? Because smart journalists and buyers don’t stop at the runway. They ferret out the best in fashion wherever it is. And there are, literally, THOUSANDS of showrooms at the corner of Los Angeles & 9th Streets. “More fashion per square foot than anywhere else in the universe” as the saying goes, and this must still be true: The California Market Center alone is a few million square feet, and some of the best lines are across the street at the Cooper, New Mart, Gerry and Lady Liberty buildings. Parking is a fortune in the area, and a full-on fleecing at the CMC. Our top secret parking place is the freshly-painted, old-school garage on 9th Street just West of Broadway.
Designers showing during this official time frame represent some of the most interesting talents in the city. Each of them exhibit a true commitment to their craft and to creating a vibrant fashion scene in Los Angeles. Yet there is still so much more fashion to see after the close of official LA Fashion Week: Quick on its heels we see several intimate west side events with Sigerson Morrison, Rachel Pally, and Corey Lynn Calter. Rodeo Drive Committee jumps in with its Walk of Style Awards, and fashion+music+art indie vibe machine Project Ethos is making a run at House of Blues on October 24. Then we’ll finally get to see the next gen of Gen Art at Rock Fashion Wk and all the promise that it holds. And who knows, we may yet see a little Vogue flit across the calendar as we close the month.
It is our fondest wish to build an exceptional and strong organizational backbone to the semi-annual fashion week proceedings, but until then, we wouldn’t be surprised to see an “every week is fashion week in LA” attitude become all the rage for the city’s emerging artists, established brands and fashion nomads. Vive la Résistance.
