L.A. Fashion Week Fall '05: Louis Verdad
Designer Louis Verdad continued to inject the new into the old in his Fall/Winter 2005 collection, which was filled with 1940s tailored looks created from menswear fabrics. The March 20 show capped off five days of events at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios in Culver City and drew a standing-room-only crowd that included Vogue Editor Anna Wintour.
“My collection is a tweak of menswear with a beautiful feminine subtouch,” said the designer, who was born in Chicago and raised in Mexico. “I wanted to bring the peplum [jacket] out as an instrument.”
Verdad took the fashionable crowd on a journey to Mexico with his Frida Kahlo–inspired runway, filled with images and icons from his muse’s many colorful paintings and clay pots overflowing with white calla lilies.
Looks were elegant, with jackets, swing coats and tops fitted at the waist or cinched with wide leather belts. Pencil skirts were prevalent as were knee-length cuffed pants and knife-pleat culottes. Verdad incorporated lots of browns and burgundies into his collection, lending a somber tone but lightened up the line with bright-green/blue tweed jackets and swing coats and a few light-blue silk blouses.
Verdad went over the top in eveningwear, creating an ethnic silk-print ball gown with layers of dusty-rose petticoats. Other looks, in black and brown, were elegant and refined.
Fabrics ranged from herringbones and tweeds to silk and charmeuse. —Deborah Belgum
