Comments (0) Best Bad-Ass Frocks - 2010
Skingraft
What do you get when you cross Amelia Earhart, Joan of Arc, the entire Victorian era, the dark end of the color spectrum, the apocalyptic future, and Dracula? You get the emerging Los Angeles design house Skingraft. The name comes from when principal designer Jonny Cota, now 27, used to remake scraps of vintage leather into coats and pants and the like. Totally expected: Skingraft’s creations — leather motorcycle jackets with leg-of-mutton sleeves; impeccably tailored vests, holsters and harnesses; scary-cool headdresses — have found a home with rock stars (Fergie, Rihanna and the Black Eyed Peas are fans). Totally unexpected: They’re also worn by local brides. Granted, it’s not your everyday bride who will say yes to a dress with a frilly bustle, pleated leather corset and taxidermied crow-wing collar. Then again, L.A. is not your everyday kind of town. At last it has a fashion house equal to its sense of drama. 125 W. 4th St., #102, dwntwn. (213) 626-2662, skingraftdesigns.com. —Gendy Alimurung
