California Apparel News

Designers, organizers weigh in on advantages and drawbacks of two-venue setup

Los Angeles Fashion Week ended only a few weeks ago, but already plans are afoot to make the next L.A. Fashion Week in late October even bigger and better.

It will also be a tad more competitive. Smashbox Studios in Culver City, Calif., is revving up plans to almost double the number of designers it will showcase during the fall fashion shows.

The California Market Center is trying to figure out a time and date for its fashion show that doesn’t coincide with Halloween.

And the people at 7th On Sixth, the New York–based group that organized the first Mercedes-Benz Shows L.A., are scrutinizing their designs for four days of fashion, scheduled for Oct. 28–31.

While the dates are firm, the venue is not. Fern Mallis, executive director of 7th On Sixth, said she was very happy with the campy, hip look of the Downtown Standard Hotel in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, where all 27 fashion shows under the Mercedes-Benz Shows L.A. umbrella were held April 1–4. But quarters were a bit tight, she noted.

“Most likely, it will be at the same venue as before,” Mallis said. “But we are looking at various options.”

Other venues could include a bigger downtown Los Angeles hotel or another downtown site, such as Los Angeles Center Studios.

Bigger and better

No matter where Mercedes-Benz Shows L.A. is held, improvements are underway to make it less like a California party and more like a New York event.

“It has a marvelous foundation to grow,” said Mallis from New York, where for years she has been responsible for organizing the semiannual Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week at Bryant Park. “But there is a big learning curve.”

She noted improvements needed to be made with almost everything—including production, public relations, management of show access and seating.

“It was very Los Angeles,” she said, noting she was frustrated with people who did not send in R.S.V.P.s but then arrived at shows. “This is a business. Everything must be taken into account. They will have to work to make the shows more professional and successful.”

Meanwhile at Smashbox Studios, Max Factor heirs Dean and Davis Factor, who run a photography studio catering to the fashion industry, are zeroing in on exact dates for their fashion shows, which they will probably hold the same week as Mercedes-Benz Shows L.A.

The April shows marked the Factor brothers’ first attempt at staging a week of fashion events. The Smashbox shows debuted the Fall 2003 collections of 12 local designers and of Frederick’s of Hollywood.

Dean Factor, the younger of the two brothers and the chief executive of Smashbox Enterprises, said they will add more designers to their next event now that they have more experience in organizing fashion shows.

“We realized it was very easy, and we can put on a lot of shows,” he said. “I would like to have three or four days of shows back-to-back with maybe six or seven designers a day.”

Every designer who showed at Smashbox, he said, is scheduled to return.

“But we will have to put on certain requirements that each designer will have to meet to be at Smashbox,” he added. “They will have to have a certain amount of retail volume, an outside public-relations firm and things like that. We have to take it more seriously.”

Money walks

Neither group made money on their L.A. Fashion Week events.

Mallis, whose group is owned by IMG, a global sports and lifestyle marketing organization, said 7th On Sixth neither made nor lost money.

“We wouldn’t be coming out there if we were losing money,” she said. “We expect to eventually make money.”

To jump-start its Los Angeles fashion shows, 7th On Sixth charged a fraction of what it normally charges designers to participate at Bryant Park. While rates in Los Angeles varied from $750 for a small venue to $3,500 for a large tent, they normally run from $14,000 to $39,500 in New York.

Dean Factor said he and his photographer brother, Davis, did not charge designers to hold fashion shows at their 35,000-square-foot studio. Everything was free, from lights to make-up artists. All that the designers had to provide were models and clothes.

The Factor brothers ended up spending about $200,000 of their own money to create a laid-back Los Angeles event where booze and parking were free.

“Let’s just say we threw a week-long party,” Dean Factor said wryly.

The fashion shows helped build brand recognition for the Factors’ make-up line, Smashbox Cosmetics, which they launched in 1996.

The brothers will be showing some of the cosmetic looks created for the fashion shows on videotapes at Smashbox counters in major department stores.

The Factors said they are also thinking of creating a new division within Smashbox Enterprises that would organize fashion shows around the country. New York could be next, they said.

Designer spotlight

The real winners of Fashion Week were Los Angeles’ designers, who had never had such exposure. At one fashion show, Dean Factor said he counted 90 photographers from various media snapping photos.

The Downtown Standard Hotel was packed with buyers, TV cameras, photographers and celebrities.

Kevan Hall, who started his Kevan Hall Collection two years ago, got a great response to his show, held in the Downtown Standard Hotel’s Atelier space.

“There were many stylists in the audience,” he recalled. “In fact, the next day, Whitney Houston’s stylist rang me and asked me to quickly do a dress from our runway collection for her to appear on the season finale of the TV show ’Boston Public.’ There have been lots of promos for that show. So that dress has been on all the promos.”

Richard Tyler, who showed his upscale Richard Tyler Collection and his less-pricey Tyler line in a big tent set up behind the Downtown Standard Hotel, said he was happy with the people—including actress Jamie Lee Curtis—who attended his show. His biggest client, Neiman Marcus, sent a buyer out from Dallas to view his Fall collection.

Tyler, who also has shown his collection at Bryant Park, liked the ease of showing in Los Angeles. When organizing a New York fashion show, he said, he has to bring seven seamstresses. And the New York weather is less-than-perfect in winter, he added.

Eduardo Lucero, who displayed his Fall 2003 collection at Smashbox Studios, said the day after his show, his Beverly Boulevard boutique was swamped with phone calls from clients, celebrity representatives and guests who wanted to place orders.

But he was disappointed that some press people did not wander over to Culver City to attend the Smashbox events. He said the dual locations were a bit confusing.

For Lucero, showing at Smashbox Studios was a matter of convenience. The designer showed his Spring 2003 collection at Smashbox free of charge, which made him happy to show there again this season.

“They really went out of their way,” Lucero said, adding that the only costs he had to absorb were fees for his models and for public relations.

Designer Corey Lynn Calter, who said she had been in the middle of shipping production during Fashion Week, said the convenience of showing at Smashbox Studios was especially enticing for her. She said the prime time slot and the accommodations she received made Smashbox an irresistible choice for staging her first independent fashion show.

Designer Cornell Collins said even before he was chosen as one of four designers to have a show sponsored by 7th On Sixth, he had his sights set on showing at Mercedes-Benz Shows L.A.

“It was an amazing deal,” he said. “There’s no way I could have put on a show like that, for that kind of money, on my own.”

Collins said he received positive reviews for his Fall collection but noted that buyer attendance was stark. On a positive note, though, Collins said a buyer from Bloomingdale’s in New York contacted him after hearing good things about his collection. She said she had missed his show because she had been stuck in traffic coming from Smashbox Studios across town.

“We’ve never approached Bloomingdale’s before,” Collins said. “We’ve never had a meeting with them before, never spoken with anyone, and apparently she heard some good things about the show afterwards and called.”

Collins has scheduled an appointment to meet with Bloomingdale’s in New York. If Bloomingdale’s picks up the line, it will be the first department store to carry his collection.

“If that happens, that alone makes everything worth it,” Collins said.

Michelle Mason was another designer fortunate enough to have had her show sponsored by 7th On Sixth. Mason, whose fashion shows have headlined Los Angeles Fashion Week in the past, said she had mixed feelings about the recent new-and-improved Fashion Week.

“I love finding my own venue and having it be a part of my whole presentation, so that was definitely missed,” said Mason, who staged her runway show in November 2001 at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles. “But on the other hand, it’s just so much work. My last show, for example—it just took everything out of me.”

Mason said she was glad many talented designers were finally able to showcase their talent so inexpensively.

“I think it’s incredible—and with Smashbox, as well,” she said. “The more venues there are for designers to showcase their talent, the better. I think we’re all after the same goal, and that is to put L.A. fashion on the map.”