California Apparel News

Fashion is much like politics. Both are tied to perfect timing.

That is why local designers are urging that Los Angeles Fashion Week be moved up a few weeks—so buyers will not have already depleted their seasonal budgets by the time they arrive in Los Angeles.

The suggestion isn’t lost on the organizers behind Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios in Culver City, the largest participant in Los Angeles Fashion Week.

Fern Mallis, executive director of 7th on Sixth, which produces the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week shows as well as Olympus Fashion Week in New York, said she is working on moving up the Fall 2005 fashion shows, now tentatively scheduled for the first week of April 2005, by at least one week.

“This is being addressed,” Mallis said from her office in New York, where 7th on Sixth is headquartered. “We have a lot of positive input about moving it up next season. But nothing is confirmed. We are still talking to some people, and there are issues that have to be resolved.”

Several well-regarded local designers opted not to participate in Fashion Week this season because they said the shows are held too late to attract buyer attention.

For the first time in three seasons, Corey Lynn Calter’s collection did not make it onto the Mercedes-Benz catwalk during the Oct. 25–29 run.

“I felt we had shown our Spring collection at [Fashion] Coterie [in New York],” said Calter, whose business has rapidly become a $4 million annual enterprise. “We had basically already sold it. So it gets to be a bit tricky to decide whether you go through the expense and time of putting on a show when it will not generate sales and [will] only generate press.”

Alicia Lawhon was another Los Angeles designer who chose not to parade her Spring collection down the runway this season.

“My priorities shifted for me,” said Lawhon, who showed one year ago at Mercedes- Benz Fashion Week as a sponsored designer. “I wanted to spotlight my business rather than romancing the handful of press people and stylists who come for the shows. hellip; If you have the players in the right place, they have already seen the collection.”

Fashion industry observers noted the absence of internationally famous Los Angeles designer David Cardona, who just finished up a stint working for Cerutti in Italy. Instead of participating in the Mercedes-Benz event, he headlined the runway show organized by Fashion Business Inc., a nonprofit group that promotes young designers, at The Standard Downtown L.A.

Another absentee was Magda Berliner, who had showed twice at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week but bowed out this season. Like Calter, she is also concentrating on the business aspect of her label, which is still a small enterprise. “Buyers don’t attend fashion shows,” Berliner said. “This is business, not a party.”

Business interests kept Cynthia Vincent away from the runway. The designer said she was focusing her attention on her label, Twelfth Street By Cynthia Vincent. “Business has just exploded, and I didn’t have the manpower to put on a fashion show,” she said.

Conflicting interests kept some major apparel powerhouses away. After showing for three straight seasons, Richard Tyler was absent from the runways because he was moving his offices from Monterey Park, Calif., to South Pasadena, Calif. “We just couldn’t have done it,” he said.

Designer Michelle Mason, another regular on the runway, skipped this season because she had a wedding to attend. But when weighing whether to attend the wedding or organize a fashion show, she took into account that not that many buyers would show up. “By the time buyers get out here, their budgets are used up. The shows generally are not for buyers but for press purposes. I felt we needed a break,” she said, noting that she took the money she normally would have spent on a fashion show and set up a Web site that features her Spring 2005 collection, among other things.

European competition

Critics of Los Angeles’ fashion week dates also point out that many buyers don’t make it to the West Coast for fashion week because they are exhausted after viewing runway shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris.

That’s one reason why Michael Fink, the New York–based senior fashion director of Saks Fifth Avenue, did not make it out to Los Angeles for this season’s fashion week.

“The timing on the October show is always difficult. It is right after Europe, and I’ve been traveling for a month,” said the buyer, who has attended Los Angeles Fashion Week in the past. “Then I come back here, and the store priorities make it difficult to get out to Los Angeles.”

Runway regulars upbeat

Nonetheless, the designers who have been runway regulars at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which launched in early 2003, have been happy to see the event improve with each season.

They keep coming back for the press coverage, which helps offset the $40,000 to $50,000 it takes to organize a show and the $1,500 to $6,000 it costs to rent a runway.

“I was interviewed by E! Entertainment. People saw me on ’Fashion Police.’ The Learning Channel and Style Network interviewed me and Paris fashion TV,” said Sue Wong, whose elaborately embellished evening dresses and daytime collection have propelled the company to generate $40 million a year in revenue, up from $2 million five years ago. “The show gets taped and beamed across the planet. I had someone from Argentina say they had seen my show on TV.”

Because she presented her collection toward the end of fashion week and right before Los Angeles Market Week, Wong said she had several specialty store retailers from Oregon, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Arizona and New Mexico attend the show. “I think it really helped business, and a runway presentation helps the retailer really see the garment on in its full glory, the way the designers envisioned it to be,” she said.

Wong noted that the show helped her company receive its first $1 million Spring order from The Neiman Marcus Group Inc.

Nony Tochterman, whose Petro Zillia label is a perennial favorite among fashion reviewers, said her show propelled Spring season sales 25 percent over last year even though only local specialty store buyers showed up. “Fashion week exposes the line,” said the pink-haired designer, known for her love of bright colors. “If people are on the fence about whether to buy, it helps them decide.”

Better organization

People praised the shows for being better organized than in previous years, particularly since 7th on Sixth and Smashbox Studios, a commercial photo studio in Culver City, joined forces instead of holding competing shows in two different locations.

Couches were set up in the Smashbox Studios lobby for people to rest their tired feet. The flow of pedestrian traffic was better, and invitation lines moved slightly faster.

The only major complaint was about the valet parking, which still was as backed up as the San Diego Freeway during rush hour. “That was our fourth valet company,” lamented Dean Factor, who owns Smashbox Studios with his brother, Davis. “Hopefully, one day we will find someone who can do it.”