With LA Fashion week now over, it’s time to give you the soundbites and general impressions of the Fashiontribes writers who were flung across the city –from Smashbox/IMG in Culver City to Boxeight to Kitten Shows at the Standard in Downtown LA and other collections being shown at trendy hot spots across the "scene" of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. There are shows still being shown at the California Mart (Single for one who was much missed at Smashbox)
What’s the "down -lo " on LAFW? Please note that these are opinions and feedback from not only me but from other writers who were covering the scene. The IMG/Smashbox show schedule was the thinnest schedule seen in many a season– despite the inclusion of t-shirt lines that don’t have a full collection to show and there weren’t the numbers of denim lines hitting the runway seen in previous year.
IMG/Smashbox decided to bring the design suites onsite and thus it cut into the number of venues available from 3 to 2 and also cut the number of chairs available by 90-150 less per show than previous seasons. While designers were asked to cut the number of non-essential guests (D list celebs etc) to allow for press, PR firms were hard pressed to get media into the shows because of the number of celeb "friends" and the number of press covering shows was greatly increased because there were fewer shows on site. Unfortunately– the media lost and even I didn’t get invited to shows like Collection Bebe despite my print and online coverage overlaps. Not the PR firm’s fault that they ran out of seats. Another Fashiontribe writer was turned away from the Joseph Domingo show because it was full and no standing room available. *sigh*..
However, there was no lack for off-site locations if one wanted to head down to the Standard for the Kitten Shows which were launching a slew of new designers
While it never rains in LA according to my east coast contacts, it did rain in LA on Tuesday of LAFW and that made people scarce during the day and thus one could actually find onsite parking without having to valet the car or hit the parking structure almost 2 miles away and wait for the shuttle bus. However the amount of available street parking was a bad sign for attendance at the daytime shows which started at 1 PM. Even the design suites weren’t getting the traffic one would have expected .
What happened to this Fall 2007 LAFW? I can’t say. By cutting down on the number of chairs available and limiting standing space from extremely limited to nil in some shows. It was tough running from Culver City to Sunset and across to downtown if one was attending the www.kittenfashionweek.com
At Kitten Fashionweek, there were many new lines but 2 I knew of were KushCush— a swimwear line that’s sweet and sassy that’s branched out to ready to wear that shows off in metallic side of things. ( Will Robinson where are you?).
Octavio Carlin was interesting.. but needs seasoning.
Krel is a line I am familiar with and it’s a great knitwear line that’s got unique ideas and textures.
However the same problem that I saw with IMG’s LAFW in most lines was also evident in Kitten Fashionweek which was a lack of actual clothing that had fall in mind (trousers, pants, jackets, sweaters, coats) and not just shorts, minis, crop jackets and mini-dresses. As one stylist said "what were they thinking? This is Fall 2007? It’s just mini dresses. Where is the clothing for fall?".
Another spot downtown running shows that were competitive in timing and location to the kItten shows and the other non Smashbox locations, was Boxeight.
There were a number of shows for 3 nights running: Sat was Eduardo Lucero (he never disappoints); Jared Gold the next evening and then a compilation night of several brands all in one evening– then a slew of after parties replete with an assortment of genre specific bands.
As another site indicated, how is it possible to be at 2-3 locations at the same time? However the highlight of Box Eight was Eduardo Lucero, a LAFW staple who really should have been at Smashbox to underscore what Kevan Hall and Oligo Tissew showed—that real fashion does exist here in LA. While it’s the land of jeans and mini dresses and shorts, we also have serious fashion lust for great designers and they exist here in LA. While it was disappointing to see Cynthia Vincent and Rodarte bypassing LA for the NYC catwalks, it’s nice to know that some designers believe that there’s no place like home– and home is Los Angeles.
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