Designs by Octavio Carlin

L.A. Fashion Week — Style And Stars

A month on the sky-high heels of February’s New York Fashion Week, the West Coast responded with some fall/winter runway action of its own. While the East Coast draws the crème de la crème of the fashion world, from the top designers (Max Azria to Zac Posen) to media moguls and A-List movie stars, Los Angeles Fashion Week is its own zany affair. As Ranch & Coast found out in early March, however, it is still quite a spectacle.

Los Angeles Fashion Week has been around since the mid-century, when Southern California designers began previewing their lines for local fashion journalists. For decades, venues all over town played backdrop to the latest collections as part of a loosely coordinated effort. It wasn’t until 2003, when the talent agency IMG — whose fashion division produces the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York — joined forces with Smashbox Studios in Culver City that Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Los Angeles became a centralized biannual soiree.

As it was Ranch & Coast’s first entree into Fashion Week, we decided to take baby steps, like fresh-faced innocents trotting down the runway for the very first time under Tyra Banks’ tutelage (speaking of America’s Next Top Model, 2007 contestant and runner-up Chantal Jones walked for Whitley Kros — more on that show later). We headed up for just two days, which was ample time to discover that even up and coming fashion can be great entertainment.

We arrived at the sprawling Smashbox Studios on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. The crowd that had gathered — stylists, media types, connected fashionistas, various hangers-on — was dressed to impress. Except for a few glaring fashion missteps, the men and women in the crowd looked chic and au courant for springtime.

There were bright pops of canary yellow, royal blue, and fire engine red alongside crisp palettes of black-and-white and soft neutral grays. Men wore natty suits, with or without ties (the ascot and fedora were popular accessories). Young women flaunted feminine florals, safari prints, and retro mini-dresses, while the more mature attendees wowed with status handbags.

Designer Kelly Nishimoto kicked off Fashion Week with her Imasu line. Presented on the Main Stage, Nishimoto’s fall and winter looks favored olive and hunter greens and rich plums, as well as brocades, ribbons, and lace detailing at hemlines. Her legging-like trousers with tiered, ruffled bottoms looked a bit like bloomers even on giraffe-like models. Some of Nishimoto’s evening pieces were pretty, and others a tad costume-y.

Before the show, photographers scanned the rows of white folding chairs for celebrity faces. One, a petite black actress with a British accent, explained modestly that she’d been in an episode of CSI and a few independent films. "I just have one of those faces that people kind of recognize," she offered after yet another photographer snapped her picture.

Others spotted during opening afternoon included contestants from the VH1 reality show Rock of Love. One of them even bartended at LAFW’s hosted bar. We soothed our megastar-starved spirits with a free makeover at the Smashbox’s makeup counter in the cushy waiting lounge. After that, we were well rewarded for our patience.

The paparazzi chant was deafening. "Juliette, over here. Juliette! Juliette!" Quirky actress Juliette Lewis had arrived in hot pink tights and was posing on a little square of red carpet. She was just one of the celebs who turned up for Whitley Kros, a hipster-inflected clothing line co-designed by the actress Marissa Ribisi. In attendance at the nighttime runway show were Ribisi’s husband (the musician Beck), and her brother, actor Giovanni Ribisi. Danny Masterson (That ’70s Show) and Jenna Elfman (Dharma and Greg) sat near Kirstie Alley in the front row.

Most fashion insiders acknowledge that L.A. Fashion Week is still the red-headed stepchild to the New York, Paris, and Milan shows. But it’s a young and promising stepchild, one that with any luck will grow into something fabulous and totally fit for the world of high fashion.
— AnnaMaria Stephens, photography by Kristy Ann Mann

Models showcase designs by Whitley Kros