California Apparel News

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spent four and a half hours in the Fashion District on Oct. 27 visiting the Designers and Agents trade show at the Los Angeles Fashion Market. The unprecedented visit came about thanks to the mayor’s daughter Natalia and a chance meeting between D&A’s Ed Mandelbaum and the mayor at the Los Angeles Fashion Awards on Oct. 26.Natalia Villaraigosa asked her father to take her and her friend Emily Labowe to the awards event, where the mayor gave the opening address.“She called three times to ask if I was invited to the awards,” the mayor said. “She said, ’If you got invited, and if you want to go, I want to come and I want to bring my friend.’”Mandelbaum was introduced to the mayor at the pre-show cocktail party and took the opportunity to invite the mayor and his daughter to stop by the trade show the following day. The impromptu shopping trip was expected to take an hour but ended up lasting more than four hours as the two girls—and the mayor—shopped, met with sales reps, showroom owners and designers, and discussed the challenges and opportunities facing Los Angeles’ fashion industry.“I want to start to think about fashion, how my office can support the industry,” Villaraigosa said.“There are 450,000 jobs in the creative economy,” said Villaraigosa, explaining that fashion, as well as architecture, art, theater and other creative fields, make up Los Angeles’ creative economy. “We have to nurture it,” he said.

During his visit, the mayor walked the D&A show in The New Mart and the Cooper Design Space, stopping at booths to shake hands and introduce himself.“Hi, I’m Antonio,” he said by way of introduction.Joining the mayor, his daughter and her friend on their visit was the Mayor’s nephew and staffer, Aaron Monarrez, and a security team. The group met with Mandelbaum and his business partner, Barbara Kramer; Steve Hirsh, the owner of the Cooper Design Space; Kent Smith, the executive director of the Fashion District Business Improvement District; and Molly Rhodes, publisher of the California Apparel News.The mayor’s visit coincided with a scheduled anti-war demonstration in downtown Los Angeles, which put a damper on the market’s otherwise-strong turnout. Last year’s mammoth immigration rally fell during market, putting a halt to business during the protest. Several reps and showroom owners, including Hatch and The Bank’s Betsee Isenberg, asked the mayor if there was anything his office could do to prevent rallies and demonstrations from falling at the same time as market.While sympathetic to the problem, the mayor explained that he was unable to simply deny a permit to hold a rally because of a previously scheduled event. “It’s the Constitution. You can’t deny a permit because of the date,” he explained. “But there’s got to be a solution because this is crazy.”Mandelbaum noted that disruption of market business was among the factors keeping Los Angeles from competing with the world’s fashion capitals. “We have all been working so hard to elevate L.A. to [the same status as] New York or Paris,” said Ed Mandelbaum. “Things like this hold us back. That’s the challenge—to make L.A. an international fashion capital. As far as the support of fashion is concerned, New York is way ahead of L.A.”The fiscal impact of the city’s fashion industry was brought up by the BID’s Smith. Wholesale sales in downtown Los Angeles account for $4.7 billion annually, according to Smith, who estimated that the district’s retailers bring in about $1 billion annually. “We want to keep it in L.A.,” he said.

Another point brought up by members of the group was Los Angeles Fashion Week and efforts to host more fashion-week events in downtown Los Angeles.Smith discussed the need to build more housing in the Los Angeles Fashion District to solve the affordable housing crisis and to put more people closer to the 37,000 jobs in the district. And more vertical development—rather than the sprawl of Los Angeles’ ever-increasing suburbs—will ease the city’s traffic congestion, as well, the mayor said. At one point in the tour, Villaraigosa stopped to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Cooper building’s top floor. Pointing to the surrounding rooftops, Villaraigosa said he wants to encourage building owners to build gardens on the tops of their buildings.“Green roofs—that’s what downtown needs,” he said.At the end of the visit, the mayor and his daughter had placed orders from several companies, including Dolce Vita, Camper, June, Organic, Stronghold, Scoop, Earnest Sewn, Denim of Virtue and Old Stud Handmade.The mayor said he hoped the visit was the beginning of greater cooperation between his office and the fashion community.“The people in this industry are so friendly—and they are so authentic,” he said.