L.A. Fashion Week Fall 2002: Jared Gold
If Jared Gold’s clothing were a food, it would be rich and moist cupcakes with pink and turquoise icing and rainbow sprinkles with a dark red cherry on top. The cupcakes, however, would be served on an aged, black, wrought-iron platter with cobwebs delicately dangling from its swirly edges.
On April 14, for the showing of his Fall 2002 collection, Gold customized a vacant space in a gritty downtown Los Angeles building called the Tear Down Building, turning it into a street-style, spray-painted, Jared Gold-esque palace. The designer covered a lot of ground—and that’s not even referring to the pink-and-turquoise spray-painted runway—showing three collections: Black Chandelier, the designer’s ready-to-wear collection; Jared Gold, his now signature couture collection; and a costume index that was a collection of costumes and clothing from past seasons that, after the show, would be (as Gold put it) “retired.”
“Motorhead” was the title this season for Black Chandelier. Helmeted girls wore predominantly black and white tops, skirts, trousers and dresses with shots of turquoise and pink and striped ruffled trims.
Next was Jared Gold couture, titled “Hardcore.” The all-red collection showcased the passionate side of Gold’s design psyche, featuring such characters as “the Spaniard” to represent sex, “the Starlette” to represent regret and a finger-tipped fire dancer—”the Jajo”—to represent fear.
Finally, Gold showed some of his most elaborate pieces dating from 1997 to last season.
Like the thought of his clothing as food, Gold really knows how to create a feast for the eyes. —Joselle Yokogawa
