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Last month, several
dozen members of Los Angeles’s fashion elite met on the
rooftop of the hip Hotel Erwin on Venice Beach. Their issue of concern:
the cancellation of the city’s fashion week in March. (Our invitation must've gotten lost in the mail. Hmm)
Luminaries Doris Raymond—whose library of vintage fashion is sought
out by Paris and New York designers—and pop jewelry designer Tarina
Tarantino discussed a new effort to bring back the event. “I’m here to
support” L.A. designers, said Ms. Tarantino, her vivid pink hair
bobbing in the ocean breeze.
But even as organizers like fashion publicist Jennifer Uner,
announced “a call to action” to revive the runway show, there was a
sense that something was missing. Most notably, many Los Angeles-based
fashion designers opted out of the event. Fewer than a dozen have
expressed serious interest in showing at an L.A. fashion week this fall.
Los Angeles may be better known for wearing fashion than selling it,
but the problem goes beyond L.A. There is a growing sense among
designers and producers of fashion events that the time-honored system
of selling fashion from runways is losing ground.
One
blow is the loss of corporate support. Although fashion weeks are
organized and sponsored by government entities in Milan, Paris and even
Berlin (which is taking place this week), American designers must seek
corporate sponsors to organize a central venue and defray costs.
Entertainment management giant IMG, car brand Mercedes-Benz and
Smashbox Studios backed out of the Los Angeles event entirely, leaving
only a smattering of independent events.
Many designers pulled out of New York’s well-established,
IMG-sponsored fashion week last February, with some holding their own
events that same week. And Gen Art, an arts-events organization known
for identifying young talent, including Zac Posen, Rebecca Taylor and
Peter Som, is struggling to hold events on a shoestring after losing
many of its sponsors.
Fashion has a long tradition of runway shows, which are really fancy
trade shows where designers present their vision to editors and
retailers just before stores place their wholesale orders—about six
months before the clothes appear in stores. Not only do such shows
offer publicity to designers; many other people benefit from the show
economy, including publicists and event producers like Ms. Uner,
caterers, restaurants and hotels.
But the Internet has exacerbated pressures on the catwalks by making
it easier for designers to market directly to consumers. “Everyone is
trying to change the format of a girl walking down the runway, because
that’s so passé,” says L.A. designer Juan Carlos Obando. Last fall,
Viktor & Rolf released a video on its Web site rather than showing
on a runway, and an increasing number of designers hold alternative
presentations that they replay on their Web sites.
Until a few years ago, the magazine editors and retailers who
attended runway shows closely guarded access to photos until the
clothes were ready to show up in stores. But these days, with members
of the audience filming, photographing and tweeting from their seats,
the format feels about as modern as Brylcreem. “Instant Web has really
put a lot of pressure on the system,” says Ms. Uner, who has maintained
Los Angeles’ fashion calendar for years.
IMG, which continues to organize fashion weeks in U.S. cities,
including New York, is exploring “newer models that are more
consumer-driven,” says Zach Eichman, vice president of marketing for
IMG Fashion. One opportunity IMG is pursuing is a series of regional
shows that occur closer to the time when clothes hit stores. The shows
are more explicitly designed for store customers, not editors or
retailers. “The consumer angle provides almost limitless
possibilities,” he says.
Another hurdle for designers showing in L.A.: The traditional fashion
weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris—pregnant with new designers,
as well as age-old brands—have stretched to more than a month of hourly
shows. By the time store buyers return from Paris, they may have seen
more than a hundred shows and spent all they can.
“The budgets for designer labels are nearly completed by the end of
the Paris shows,” says John Arguelles, president of the Los
Angeles-based design house of Lloyd Klein. “L.A. is known for driving
trends all over the globe, but the sales happen in New York.”
Apparel manufacturing is one of L.A.’s largest employers, but the
city’s most famous designers, including Monique Lhuillier, Trina Turk,
and Laura and Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte, show their wares in New York.
Mr. Obando credits his first shows in L.A. with showing him the ropes.
But when he started showing in New York three seasons ago, he says the
impact was immediate. “Sales appointments were up 500%,” he says.
Thus it’s unclear what will take place in Los Angeles during the
week of October 9-16, when organizers hope to revive the L.A. show.
Other players are moving into the vacuum. New York-based event producer
Rock Media & Entertainment is planning its own Los Angeles Rock
Fashion Week on October 28-31 at Paramount Studios. The event is
expected to include about a dozen runway shows by a mix of local,
national and international designers, as well as a group show for
emerging designers.
Shortly before Ms. Uner planned to address the group at Venice Beach
last week, she received another blow. An emissary from the L.A.
department of public works, scheduled to assure the city’s support,
sent a message that she’d been overscheduled and couldn’t attend.
Still, Ms. Uner holds out hope. “With so much talent living here and
practicing here, why not have people come here?”
-Story originally appeared in the WSJ, penned by Christina Binkley
