Putting Fashion Back on the Bay Area Map
San Francisco is hoping to jumpstart its apparel industry by staging its first-ever fashion week in August at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre.
“It’s time that San Francisco has a fashion week,” said Erika Gessin, founder of Mystery Girl Productions and the woman behind San Francisco Fashion Week. “The overall feedback I hear from people who work in the fashion industry here is that this is the start of something amazing, and it’s something that’s going to last.”
With more than 15 runway shows and a plethora of pre-show celebrations and after parties during the four-day event, San Francisco Fashion Week is expected to draw more than 5,000 buyers, editors and fashion industry people.
The event, which will take place Aug. 26–29, will feature Bay Area labels Joseph Domingo, Hieros, Liz Bang Swimwear, Saffron Rare Threads, Christina Hurvis Coutureand Colleen Quen Couture. Los Angeles–based Rock & Republicand Fornarina U.S.A. and New York–- based Starr D and Loungewear Betty will round out the lineup. There are three slots open, Gessin said.
“As an incubator for cutting-edge new talent, the San Francisco Bay Area simply excels,” said Randall Harris, executive director of San Francisco Fashion Industries. “We’re pleased that Fashion Week will provide a window through which the rest of the country can view that which is uniquely ours.”
However, striking a balance between the fashion industry’s expectations of a professional runway event and hopes to highlight the city’s design talent may be a difficult task, industry sources said.
Missing from the bill are San Francisco’s most notable fashion designers— including British designer Deborah Hampton, vintage-inspired womenswear designer Erica Tanov, the unconventional duo behind Nice Collective and the bohemian-chic designers of Nisa San Francisco. There are still several designers and apparel companies that have not yet responded, Gessin said.
“I think the show should be focused on up-and-coming local fashion designers and not so much on designers from other cities,” said Blakely Bass, owner of Residents Apparel Gallery, a San Francisco specialty boutique that represents about 45 local designers.
Although Gessin admits she lacks an official Fashion Week committee (she said several people in the Bay Area’s apparel industry could not commit because of time constraints), she spoke with several local designers and boutique owners in the area who offered to recommend designers for the show. “Each designer collection was reviewed by someone in the media or a retailer. It was really informal,” Gessin said, adding she hopes the shows will generate more interest in creating a formal committee.
Los Angeles Fashion Week had a similar grass roots beginning in the late 1990s, when local designers held independent events during market weeks. In 2001, Los Angeles–based public relations firm SPR staged Audi Presents Los Angeles Designers, which included David Cardona, Petro Zillia, Cornell Collins, Tree and Jared Gold. The event took on even greater scope when Smashbox Studios and 7th on Sixth, producers of Olympus Fashion Week (formerly called Mercedes- Benz Fashion Week) in New York joined in with their own events. In 2004, the two partnered to produce Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios in Culver City, Calif.
More than denim
Besides denim giant Levi Strauss & Co. and mega-chain retailer Gap Inc., the Bay Area has mostly been known as a design center for moderate womenswear and formalwear. Not since the early 1990s, when the dot.com boom hiked commercial rents and pushed apparel businesses out of town, has the city been so in sync with its fashion aspirations.
“The city’s fashion designers never stopped making clothes; they just haven’t found a vehicle to market their collections,” Gessin explained. “Fashion Week would signify the city’s reemergence into the fashion industry.”
Gessin paid close attention to the positioning of San Francisco Fashion Week in the national marketplace, scheduling the shows after San Francisco’s market week, which will run Aug. 21–24 at the Concourse Exhibition Center. She also did not want the fashion week to conflict with the fashion weeks in Los Angeles and New York.
“I thought it would be wise to time it when buyers would be in the area,” Gessin said. “It also gives buyers an incentive to stay in the city.”
San Francisco economists said it is unlikely the event will drastically boost the local economy although it will help make the city a destination for fashion followers.
“Celebrating San Francisco as a fashion destination pays a muchdeserved tribute to our many stylish residents and provides a high-profile and exciting platform for artists, designers and fashion students residing and working in our fair city,” San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said in an official proclamation declaring Aug. 26–29 the first-ever San Francisco Fashion Week.
The designers will pay $500 to have a one-hour slot in the runway show lineup. Those fees will go toward the total cost to promote the event, Gessin said, adding that her production company will handle all aspects of the runway shows, including models, hairstyling, make-up and production design. Sponsorships by W San Francisco, NARS Cosmetics Inc., SF Weekly, Zink Magazine and San Francisco Magazine will cover most of the production’s expenses. However, Gessin said she is prepared to dip into her own cash reserve if necessary.
Tickets will cost $25 for three shows. For more information, visit www.fashionweek-sf.com.
