California Apparel News

Let’s talk.

That is the message floating between the dueling organizers of Los Angeles Fashion Week’s runway shows.

The owners of Smashbox Studios in Culver City, Calif., where five days of fashion shows were held recently, and the organizers of Mercedes-Benz Shows L.A., which staged fashion shows during the same week at the Downtown Standard Hotel and nearby University Club in Los Angeles, know they need to coordinate their events if they want the Los Angeles fashion industry to thrive.

“There is the beginning of a conversation,” said Fern Mallis, executive director of 7th On Sixth Inc., the New York fashion show production company that organized MBSLA. “It helps everybody to do what is best for the industry.”

Dean Factor, who owns Smashbox Studios with his brother Davis, a photographer, said it would benefit everyone if the competing companies divided the next fashion week into two segments.

As it stands now, Smashbox’s next fashion week will be held March 29–April 2. MBSLA has tentatively scheduled its event for March 30–April 2.

“My suggestion was, ’Why don’t we just split up the week?’” brothers, who said he talked with 7th On Sixth executives days after the last MBSLA show on Oct. 31. “We could take Sunday through Wednesday, and they could do Thursday through Sunday, or vice versa. They said they would get back to us, but they haven’t called.”

Factor also said 7th On Sixth approached Smashbox, a photography studio, about being a sponsor of the downtown fashion week event. “That didn’t make sense at all for us,” he said.

Mercedes-Benz has been the title sponsor of the downtown event and still has two years left on its sponsorship contract, Mallis said. Other sponsors of the Spring 2004 shows included Redken, Evian, Beth Bender Cosmetics, Siemens Mobile and the California Apparel News.

Meanwhile, 7th On Sixth recently announced that the Olympus camera company will take over sponsorship of the biannual fashion shows held in New York’s Bryant Park, replacing Mercedes-Benz, which had been the title sponsor since 2001.

The more the merrier?

7th On Sixth’s venture into Los Angeles Fashion Week began last April. At the same time, Smashbox Studios decided to set up its own full-blown set of shows at its cavernous locale on Higuera Street, which has five photo studios and a cafe.

Suddenly, Los Angeles went from a place that had hosted numerous independent fashion events during the big Spring and Fall market weeks to a city glutted with back-to-back catwalk events.

During this recent fashion week, which started on Oct. 23 and ended on Nov. 4, Smashbox organized 25 fashion shows, more than twice the shows the photo studio had hosted last April. And 7th On Sixth produced 34 shows this October, up from 26 last April.

Smashbox began charging for its venues: $1,200 for a large tent that seated 600 and $1,000 for a space that seated 250. Fees at MBSLA ranged from $750 to $4,500.

The overabundance of runway shows crammed into one week forced stylists and buyers to make tough decisions about which fashion shows to attend.

“One night I wanted to see House of Field [at Smashbox Studios], but I also wanted to see Millergirl [at the Downtown Standard Hotel],” recalled celebrity stylist Tod Hallman. “But because they were at opposite ends of town, it was impossible to go to both. With the two venues running at the same time, it was a big distraction.”

Some designers said the conflicting times and different locations didn’t help anyone.

“I wish there was a better solution to the shows being done in two different venues that are so far apart,” said Nony Tochterman, a Los Angeles designer whose Petro Zillia collection showed at MBSLA. “I could tell from some of the reviews in different publications that the writers were frustrated they had to drive back and forth.”

Richard Tyler, who showed his Tyler and Richard Tyler collections at MBSLA, had to delay the start of his fashion show because some of the attendees were still at Smashbox Studios.

“A lot of people attending our show were late because they were caught in traffic,” said Tyler, who is considered by many to be the reigning godfather of Los Angeles designers. “There is plenty of room for both organizations. They have to get organized and come to some sort of an agreement.”

Competing venues also made it more difficult for runway models, whom designers asked to show up four hours before events started, said Natalie Smith, runway director at the Ford Modeling Agency in Los Angeles, which has 15 runway models. That requirement limited most models to two shows a day.

To secure models, some designers paid top dollar. The going rate for models was $200 to $500 per show. Designer Jennifer Nicholson and Susana Mercedes paid higher rates to lock in their choice of models.

Some designers offered their models clothing in lieu of payment, a common practice in the past when things were smaller and less competitive.

Still, some agencies felt obligated to be a part of the week.

“It’s kind of a Catch-22,” said Crista Klayman, runway director at L.A. Models in Los Angeles. “You have to participate in the fashion shows whether you want to or not because you want people to be aware of your runway department, but at the same time, a model can’t pay her rent with a T-shirt.”

Location, location, location

Many in the fashion industry would like to see the two fashion week organizers pick locations that are closer together. People had mixed feelings about 7th On Sixth’s downtown Los Angeles locations. While they gave the fashion events a cosmopolitan air and offered proximity to the market week activities at the California Market Center, The New Mart and the other showroom buildings in the area, it created a logistical nightmare for those coming from areas surrounding downtown.

Eduardo Lucero, one of Los Angeles’ hottest designers, was almost late to his own fashion show.

After leaving his Beverly Boulevard boutique, he got bogged down in bumper-to-bumper traffic 12 blocks away from the Downtown Standard Hotel. Lucero left his car with his assistant and ran the rest of the way to arrive in time to disperse passes to the bevy of models, hairstylists and organizers who needed to prepare for his 8 p.m. fashion show on Oct. 30. “We need a little cooperation between everybody,” said Lucero, who last April showed at Smashbox but switched to MBSLA because he said he felt it was a more business-oriented location.

With that in mind, organizers of the MBSLA event will be making several trips in the near future to survey other Los Angeles locations for its next shows. “Everything is being reviewed,” Mallis said.