California Apparel News

Gen Art founders Ian Gerard and Stefan Gerard have announced that they are shuttering their 16-year-old organization, which focused on providing a launching pad for emerging talent in fashion, film, art and music.

In a release, the founders said a “major, new corporate partnership unexpectedly collapsed. hellip; We found ourselves without sufficient financial resources or time to overcome this sudden and substantial loss of revenue. Their decision had the unintended effect of pushing Gen Art over the edge. As of today we have halted all operations.”

For the past year, Gen Art has been attempting to find a partner or corporate sponsor to help it weather the economic downturn.

In August, Gen Art announced a merger with Rock Media & Entertainment, a 2-year-old entertainment and media company in New York. The deal included a $500,000 payment from Rock Media to Gen Art to cover the company’s short-term liabilities. Rock Media was also expected to assume all of Gen Art’s debt.

At the time, Ian Gerard, the chief executive of Gen Art, said the merger came at the right time for his organization, which had a budget that is 80 percent financed by corporate sponsorships. The group’s three largest sponsors were Citibank, American Express and Acura, companies in three industries that have been hard hit by the economy. The merger was expected to stabilize the financially struggling Gen Art, which specialized in producing big, expensive fashion shows that feature new talent. However, Ian Gerard told California Apparel News in November that the Rock Media deal was never “consummated.”

Gen Art’s Fresh Faces in Fashion shows in cities such as Los Angeles and New York grew its cache, often featuring notable new talent. During Los Angeles Fashion Week Fall 2010, Gen Art hosted a low-key event at the Roosevelt Hotel’s Tropicana Bar in Hollywood, inviting past Fresh Faces designers to showcase one look in a parade around the hotel’s pool.

California Apparel News’ Erin Barajas caught up with Ian Gerard to talk about Gen Art and its future prospects.

When you spoke to Apparel News in November, the sponsorship prospects for 2010 looked promising. What happened?

I.G.: We were coming out of 2009 with substantial debt mainly due to losses we suffered when the economy went into free fall in October 2008 for about 9 months as we just couldn't cut expenses as fast as the corporate partnership revenue had plunged.

Sponsorships did pick up for 2010, and we felt that we were on the slow path to recovery. We were able to produce much bigger and better programming than the previous year including a three-day lounge on Main Street at Sundance celebrating independent filmmakers, a 1,000-person New York Fashion Week show which featured four designers, a 900-person runway show during FASHIONmiami, as well as two smaller events during L.A. Fashion Week: one at the Roosevelt featuring 17 of our alums and one with Absolut Acai. And most recently, we completed what most people consider one of the most successful film festivals (our 15th Anniversary) in New York on April 13. So, 2010 was looking better. And these programs were funded by returning partners such as Acura, Citibank, Plastics Make it Possible and 7 For All Mankind, as well as several new large corporate partners including Amazon.com, Clean & Clear, General Snus, K-Swiss and Canon.

However, a major national sponsorship deal that had been acknowledged and approved by a new partner—as far back as early January—came apart in late March depriving us of all the expected revenues which the deal was to provide by April 1st. This complete turn around of events put us into an immediate nosedive with little time or resources (as we were already shouldering substantial debt) to save the company.Was there any way to continue as a much smaller operation?

I.G.: Gen Art is now bankrupt and there is no way for the company to continue at this time.Is there a chance that you and Gerard will revive Gen Art (or a similar concept) in the future?

I.G.: Who knows about the future? Stefan and I love what we created. We feel very comfortable at the intersection of artistic talent, consumers hungry for access to the worlds of fashion, art and entertainment, and the corporate partners who make all of this gel and possible.

We are just thankful for everyone who helped Gen Art do, what it did, for 16 years.