Diving Into Spring With Eduardo Lucero
Eduardo Lucero is one of L.A.’s most established and well-known designers. His designs have a sexy, feminine Latin flavor, yet maintain a sophistication that has celebrities and custom clients coming back time and again. He has been honored by Gen Art and has shown on the runway at Los Angeles Fashion Week as well as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Mexico. This is Lucero’s twentieth year in business and with nearly fifty shows under his belt, the designer continues to be inspired and reinvent himself each season. I caught up with the Lucero as he was preparing his Spring 2012 collection which will be presented tonight with an installation at Concept LA Fashion Week.
What is your inspiration for Spring 2012?
Ocean and underwater themes are big [this season]. The reason I did it is because I’ve been hearing so much news about global warming and the rising tides and how certain islands will end up getting completely sunk underwater. So I figured maybe part of what I should think about is actually creating a collection where cocktail dresses and suits are made out of underwater material. You literally can go swimming in it or you can go to a cocktail party. It’s a reaction to what’s going on in world news rather than necessarily what’s going on in world fashion.
How are you translating the underwater scuba-theme into the collection?
[There are] much more directional angles, cut outs shapes, things inspired by fish fins and gills which actually all those things will work really well because they give mobility. And balancing the feeling between very body conscious with very loose.
What keeps you inspired?
I think fashion has to reflect what’s going on in the news, and the economy and the global climate. That’s why I still do fashion after all these years because it’s not really about the clothing for me. It’s really, ’what does the clothing say about everything else going on in the world?’ Otherwise, after a couple of years you would be bored. You can’t keep producing the same thing. That’s why every single season we do such a radically different inspiration for each collection – especially when you’ve been in business as many years as I have. If you’re a young designer you can put one collection out and it feels new. This is our twentieth year in business, so we’ve done at least 50 shows at this point. You have to keep being inspired. You have to keep making it feel as fresh as if it were the first time you ever did a show. You can’t take it for granted.
How do you feel about doing a presentation vs. a runway show?
I love having runway shows because you’re able to tell a whole story and you’re able to tell a much broader story. But I think an installation gives you more control. You’re able to get the hair exactly the way you want it, you’re able to get the makeup exactly the way you want it - so that there’s not as much variable. For us right now we’re showing because we’ve always shown every single season [except] last season because it was such an awkward time in the economy. I think it’s really about making a statement and saying you know what? "LA we’re still keeping fashion week going.' It’s really important to keep it going because every season you get more young designers coming on board and they have to feel like there’s a continuity.
Are you making all the pieces for the show?
Everything including shoe covers and shoes and customizing accessories, the bags and hats and visors – everything.
Are the pieces going to be for sale?
Absolutely. The great thing about all of our runway [collections] is we sell almost all of our runway pieces and it’s not necessarily because we don’t want to keep them. It’s because people are like, 'I want it just the way it is.' And part of it for me, whenever I design a collection I want it to be super editorial. I want it to be styled properly, but I also want people to [think] if I wore it with a different pair of shoes, if I didn’t wear the scuba diving gear with it or the goggles, I could actually wear that dress to a lot of different places.
There’s such an immediate desire now for items straight off the runway, would someone be able to call you the next day and get it now?
Absolutely. I think the beauty of the whole web universe is that people want to have that immediacy. Especially when it’s something special. They will go to the end of the world to find something that is not mass-produced - that maybe there’s only two or three of them compared to 3000 or more. And I think that means a lot… you can have that specialness where nobody else will have [it]. And you can walk into a party or an event and people go, ’oh my god I love that. It doesn’t look like anyone else here.’
Can someone come to you six months later and still have the same thing made?
Yes, but we’ll do it differently because if we’re reflecting what’s going on in society, society won’t be the same in six months either. It will have moved on or something else will have happened or the colors will have changed. Ultimately, I think for me the only thing that doesn’t change is that we want to make women look amazing. Whether they look like Amazons or they look like regular women, we want the women to feel like, ’Oh, my god I feel super powerful in these outfits.’
Eduardo Lucero's studio.
Scuba-inspired items will be part of Lucero's underwater-themed Spring collection.
A seamstress at work.
Shoes please.
Accessories
The studio mascot.
