Erica Davies
Erica Davies celebrated the launch of her solo collection, Davies, with a video installation and cocktail party on Oct. 29 at MOCA at the Geffen Contemporary, the contemporary art annex to Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art. Dress forms clad in Davies’ designs hung from the ceiling in one corner of the gallery while guests enjoyed cocktails in the artsy location.
During the last 10 years, Davies has been designing for companies such as Sportmax, Marc Jacobs TWO C and BCBGMaxAzria. Most recently, she co-created Richard Tyler’s diffusion line, Tyler. Davies said she decided to collaborate with a friend, filmmaker Clement Jolin, to create a film to display her collection. “I wanted to move away from runways,” she explained.
Still, the short film, which combined commercial and music video genres, featured models walking as if on a fashion runway in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel.
“In a fashion show you don’t see the details,” Jolin said. “I’m able to see the details and give an ambiance and show what’s beautiful about the clothes using a beautiful media like film.”
Davies describes her style as tomboy chic with a soft, flirty feel. For her collection, she merged fine tailoring with modern styling to create sharp, clean pieces paired with feminine tops and skirts. Menswear stripes, solids, and floral and dot prints combined in a soft color palette of plum, mauve, apricot, gray, jade, white and black. Details such as off-center buttons, bias-cut panels and twisted spaghetti straps added interest to the collection. —N. Jayne Seward
