Organizers Fine-Tune MB Fashion Week
Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios may have been around for four years, but it is still a work in progress.
Next season, Los Angeles designers showing their Fall 2007 collections in March will see some improvements at the event, according to Dean Factor, co-owner of Smashbox Studios, the Culver City, Calif., venue where the fashion shows are held.
Factor said he and IMG Fashion, the shows’ organizers, will try to make the event a more serious affair geared toward attendees who are legitimate members of the fashion industry.
“We will look at making it harder to get into the shows for some and easier for others, letting in a more established crowd of people who should be here for business and fashion,” he said. “We will be making changes to the check-in procedure. Right now you can walk down the street, walk in and go to a show.”
To encourage more celebrities to attend, Factor said the organizers want to ease the check-in and waiting procedure for Hollywood stars. “We might have a separate celebrity entrance and a separate lounge for them. Then they would be escorted to the show and not have to be near the crowds,” he said.
Smashbox Studios is a commercial photography studio owned by Factor and his brother Davis Factor, descendents of cosmetic company founder Max Factor. Twice a year they join with New York–based IMG Fashion to hold five days of back-to-back fashion shows that highlight a variety of established and up-and-coming Los Angeles designers. It is similar to IMG’s Olympus Fashion Week in New York. But critics have said Los Angeles’ version is not as serious as New York’s.
“Our fashion week definitely needs to be more serious,” Dean Factor said. “It needs to be the ’it’ ticket to have if you’re in the fashion business.”
When Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week was launched in 2003, it was held at the Downtown Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles while a separate set of shows was held at Smashbox. Buyers and editors raced between the two venues, some 10 miles apart. After two seasons in competing locations, the two organizations decided to join forces in 2004.
“We feel this is the place to do it,” Dean Factor said.
—Deborah Belgum
