L.A. Fashion Week Fall '05: Gen Art
High theater is the goal of many fashion shows, but Gen Art hosted a theater of surprise at “The New Garde,” held March 14 at MOCA The Geffen Contemporary in downtown Los Angeles. A trio of new designers used props ranging from a trapeze to a pony to communicate their avant-garde visions.
Instead of walking the runway, models lounged, playacted roles and even danced on stages. The backdrops were theatrical sets inspired by the designers. For Edith Palm, that meant mixing Russian revolution graphics with the sensibility of the American Southwest. Goretti presented a 1940s Berlin-style cabaret. Bytinaxxx, meanwhile, created the Spaghetti Western, brought home by the pony led around the stage.
The theme was fitting because Bytinaxxx designer Konstantina Mittas said she was inspired by the 1968 film “Once Upon a Time in the West.” Mittas’ debut show featured 20 looks, which ranged from a nutmeg-colored satin gown to lingerie-like “play suits” embroidered with cowboy images. Corsets and bustles also figured as important elements in the collection.
Edith Palm designer Sarah Aaronson, debuting 20 looks in her first show, asked “What if the Bolsheviks visited 1920s New Mexico?” Aaronson silk-screened the hammer-and-sickle symbol on dresses with balloon hems. Many of her pieces used vintage pins, clasps and buttons. Some dresses had fabric collages reminiscent of Russian constructivist art. Other looks included an olive cotton twill trench coat and a silk-and-wool capelet dress bearing Free Mason symbols.
Models sat on a trapeze and danced on a nightclub stage to display Goretti’s Fall 2005 collection, which was inspired by the underground cabaret scene of Germany in the ’40s as depicted in the 1997 movie “Bent.” The 20 looks featured elegant, body-fitting silk charmeuse dresses, capelet dresses with pewter and glass bead sequins, and fishtail skirts with dramatic trains. —Andrew Asch
