L.A. has a fashion identity that is all over the place. I love what Los Angeles has to offer in terms of fashion, but it does not have the traditional respected reputation that a Paris or New York has.
George Vreeland Hill
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Fashion Issue 2011: Does L.A. Have a Fashion Identity?
Starlets, surf bums, shagsters, scarecrows, rocker vampires, and more: Our fashion issue explores L.A. style from the streets up
It is flip-flops at business meetings, and sweatpants at fancy restaurants. It is jeans with sneakers, but also with skyscraper stilettos. It is baggy sweaters and little straw hats. It is giant sunglasses and giant purses, big enough to carry a squadron of tiny dogs. It is crazy color: fuchsia, turquoise, neon yellow, baby blue. It is weird. It is sexy. It sucks. It is industry folks in leather jackets. It is schlumpy guys who can't dress and drop-dead-gorgeous girls who show so much skin in their skimpy dresses they might as well be naked.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STAR FOREMAN
Jonny Cota
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STAR FOREMAN
Jonny Cota of the cult design house Skingraft
This is what people tell you when you ask them, "What is L.A. style?" The answers are all over the map. In terms of a definitive Los Angeles look, there seems at first glance to be no there there. But ask the people who live, eat, sleep and breathe fashion — local designers, photographers, stylists, style bloggers — and familiar themes do come up.
First and foremost, Los Angeles is casual. It's a deceptive casualness, though. A deliberate kind of nonconspicuous conspicuous consumption. Casual, in L.A., isn't an accident. It's an aesthetic. "Everyone looks casual, but you know that T-shirt cost $500," says Jonny Cota, founder and lead designer of L.A. cult favorite design house Skingraft. Because he's invested in fashion, Cota can tell if an outfit is expensive or not. The general public, however, usually can't.
It takes substantial care to look like you don't care. The quintessential L.A. it-girl uniform is the epitome of careful not-caring: skinny jeans, blazer, a little top, statement bag, 5-inch platform Brian Atwood heels. "Yes, it's casual. But everything seems so chosen and thought-out. It doesn't quite look ... doesn't quite gel," says Melissa Coker, who designs the clothing line Wren.
Yet strangely, Los Angeles is not a town for high fashion, for $5,000 head-to-toe designer outfits. "We're behind a little," Cota admits. "Or we don't pay attention. Fashion Week in L.A. is not the strongest. It's not a priority."
Peter Gurnz, photographer and founder of the artists collective Boxeight, is the guy who has been trying to turn L.A. Fashion Week around for years, with mixed success. For a while, Gurnz and Boxeight hosted standard runway shows. Those eventually morphed into live photo shoots that are more performance art than anything. Guests watched as the entire theater of a fashion shoot went on display, from makeup to hair to lights to models posing for shots.
"L.A. is not a very fashionable city as far as the percentage of people who spend time every day considering their clothes," Gurnz says by phone from Martha's Vineyard. "Can you order me a lobster roll?" he calls out to someone nearby. "Sorry. People go to business meetings in shorts and flip-flops," he says of Los Angeles. "But that said, there's a unique style [there] that's copied in Asia and that we're starting to see in Paris. There are little camps of people who are thinking L.A. is cool."
He ticks off the distinct styles associated with Los Angeles: the "scarecrow" look — skinny, rich woman in oversized clothes. The avant-garde modely look, epitomized by designer Michel Berandi. "You know, really couture stuff, like sewn-in hair and stuff." Berandi, who'll sew long skeins of goat hair onto, say, a bolero or a shirt collar, is an L.A. local. "We did a fashion show with him and people were crying on the runway."
The Mexican kids doing the Morrissey rockabilly thing with pompadours and slim-cut, dark-wash jeans. The surf bums: "The one thing that does well here is sports fashion and surf apparel companies."
The rocker vampire look. "I'm wearing Endovanera right now. I probably look a little weird," he admits. "Then there's crappy shit like Christian Audigier." Audigier is the king of so-called luxury streetwear: regular T-shirts, hoodies, jeans and such, printed with loud graphics, bedazzled with rhinestones. "Those are all definable L.A. looks. Though not everyone's running around looking like scarecrows or rocker vampires."
L.A. does not influence the global fashion industry, Gurnz says. But then again, L.A.'s sense of style is still young. "We're kids. We don't have an infrastructure to support a real fashion industry. We have great designers, but then they leave. It's simply more profitable to go to other places."
By infrastructure, he means the fashion events, clients, design houses, magazines, photographers and market weeks that fuel the engine of style. "Vegas almost has a better market week than we do because of all their convention centers." He pauses. "A boutique in the East Village is going to do better than a boutique on Melrose. That's just the temperature of the water."
Does L.A. get a bum rap in the fashion world? "No. We deserve it."
But that's going to change soon, Gurnz believes, because of the rise of video-based "fashion films." Instead of sending lookbooks — the industry-standard print catalogs that show off a clothing line — to department store buyers, designers now are shooting short, Internet-based videos to showcase collections. New York–based fashion photographer Steven Klein shot a video starring Brad Pitt beating up Angelina Jolie. "Every camera now has HD video capability, so all the fashion photographers have become fashion videographers," Gurnz says.
11 comments
There's certainly a backlash from all the unkempt and boho looks perpetuated by non-L.A. folk which drive more and more Los Angeles denizens to adopt tailored and manicured self-images just to counter the stupidity of wearing $500-dollar printed Hanes cotton Tees marketed as "vintage".
L.A./So Cal is the birthplace of many now-mainstream-trends. Love 'em or hate 'em, here are a few "Distinct L.A. styles":
1) Chucks - "..The Mexican kids doing the...rockabily thing..." you mention in your article above helped bring popularity to Converse's Chuck Taylors. Once only worn by "greasers", these 'played-out' shoes (in various patterns and flavors sold by shark-y Nordstrom salesfolk) seen even on midwestern homecoming queen L.A. transplants were popularized, if not born, here.
2) Graffiti prints - popularized by Stussy, a retail brand which originated in the 80's from Laguna Beach became universally popular for its graffiti-inspired shirts. This version of "cool" or "urban" - incorporating nuances from skaters/surfers - was quite distinct from the NYC's definition of "urban" (read: hip-hop). The grafffiti/"bombing" style print was exclusive to "L.A. identity" during the 90's.
3) Terry cloth loungewear (a la Juicy Couture) - as hideous as they are (terry cloth tracksuits + Ugg Boot combos) were born and raised in So Cal (read: please blame Orange County). I'm not proud of this, however, it is distinctly "L.A." (if by "L.A." you mean trends not associated with NYC or other large metropolitan cities).
Lastly, trust-fund-bohemian-types who labor to achieve the "...nonconspicuous conspicuous consumption..." I'm-not-vain-and-it's-my-job-to-judge-those-who-blindly-consume-and-obviously-take-pride-in-their-physical-appearance are the most unoriginal, self-righteous judgemental L.A. transplant-types. (Totally non-sequitir, but I needed to vent).
meg@myprettypinkponies.com,the girl who conspicuously consumes but doesn't feel the need to hide it.
Nice analysis! I think it is feasible for L.A to get the identity of fashion! No matter what the sick things exist, the fashion can still stand stably in L.A.
Wow ..........The fashion in la is not the issue , it's the people behind it !!!!!! People who ''think'' they know what fashion is and try to make others feel bad about standing out of the crowd. I'm a cali girl and always will be ..i love the bright colors, band tee's, flip flops or jeffery campbell's look thats la ..laid back , relaxed ,having fun in the sun deal.....thats why people from all over the world come here! Leave it that way.....besides fashion week belongs to New York...they own it !
Seriousllyyyy? Proud to have been born/raised in LA (unlike most of these people quoted in this "article") I can honestly say that these people really need a grasp on fashion IN AND FROM LA. Tee shirts and jeans. LA style hands down. This MAJOR trend has bled onto Paris and NY. 15 years ago you could not find jeans in NY and Chanel had not introduced denim (to their ready-to-wear OR their bags.) Some European designers STARTED lower end divisions just so they could add denim and t-shirts.As far as UGGS, this girl has got to be kidding. We wore them before/after surfing and skiing (in high school in the '80's.) She started nothing.Putting Ed Hardy aside, LA has a HUGE and very influential sense of style and design. New and old designers....follow your dreams and don't listen to these people quoted.
LA influences fashion more than you would guess. Though the runways are in NY or Paris, the major motion picture originates in LA or a tad bit North. The Moaps not withstanding, most of what most of us see, to wear, comes from the BIG screen, not the runway. Oscar is the gold standard, not Coty. LA fashion could be said to be, nothing to buy because there's nothing open.
Angela Garcia as NeonMosfet
Although there may be other interpretations of this article, I definitely thinks it's a good start. It has some good content and makes for good reading. I will pass it along. :)
Fools like Gurnz are part of the reason Los Angeles struggles with being a fashion capital. Non-pros like him get involved and throw events under the guise of a "Los Angeles Fashion Week" that aren't taken seriously. They're poorly executed and have mediocre showings, trapped in all the cliches of amateur fashion events, only to advance his name as a third rate "fashion" photographer.
Gurnz and his crew stiffed numerous Los Angeles vendors and employees for thousands of dollars, including Vibiana downtown, one of the venues he's "rented" in the past.
From a letter from 2008, after one of Gurnz's 2007 fashion event:
This letter is regarding BoxEight’s defaulted contractual obligations exceeding $24,064.71 owed to numerous vendors and the host venue as a result of the production of their “Have Faith in LA” Fashion Week held in October 2007.This debt is the result of the disbursement of bad checks written on behalf of BoxEight, damages to equipment/rentals and the venue, and invoices for payment of goods and services fully delivered to BoxEight that have been acknowledged by Pete Gurnz and Gary Warfel as outstanding and past due.Other vendors associated with this event are also due significant amounts of money for services provided to BoxEight, but are pursuing repayment privately.A year has gone by without any efforts to satisfy these obligations and they are now considered to be walked out on.A detailed narrative of the amounts due is attached. Further information can be provided by:Vibiana Anika Warden awarden@gilmoredev.com 213-622-4949 x203October 13th, 2008
He's not a credible source and his word on fashion and LA's potential means nothing.
agreed .. just as LA Weekly isn't a credible source of fashion news or tuned in at all to what is stylish in LA
I just paid $22.87 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $675 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GetCent.com
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