Lina LecaroLA Fashion Week may be all over the place in terms of themes and scenes (read Gendy Alimurung’s Box Eight coverage here and here, as well as our own Nightranger fashion fete reports here) but that’s ultimately what makes it unique. You never know where you’re going to go or what you’re going to get. Wednesday night’s Hope in the City runway event -put on by Mosaic- at Vibiana downtown was no exception. The opening portion of the show called “Paper Dresses” featured frocks made from recycled copies of -can you tell from the photos?- LA Weekly newspapers. Sure brings new meaning to the term “eco fashion,” not to mention the prints or solids debate.
It might have had a Project Runway challenge feel, but there was no denying the crafting skills, creative construction and whimsy of each and every piece on display. The presentation also served as a reminder of one thing print journalism will always have over web: cool, colorful cover pages… and if we do say so ourselves, our pub has had some doozies lately. Favorites used in obvious ways in the dozen dresses shown included The Sundance Runaways movie cover (pic #1) and the sexy “99 Things to Eat in L.A. Before You Die” cover featuring a fetishy red-head nibbling a strawberry with chopsticks (pic #2).
Indeed, these artful gowns made a subtle statement about the appeal of tangible media. This blog post may float around in cyber space for eons, but unless you print it out, you can’t wear it. The motto for the event itself was called “Wear Your Story,” and designers seemed to put as much thought into the content and color of pages used as they did the shaping and conturing of them. And yes, we were looking for our byline amid the fine print as each paper doll pranced by. Found it on the back of the last dress shown here.
All proceeds from this show’s ticket sales and art auction were donated to
ServeLA and Beyond US charities, the latter of which currently has medical teams in Haiti. See more info. on the organizations involved here.
Dress designers in order shown here: 1) Katie Chan, 2) Mariah McManus, 3) Rexford Dosamantes 4) Janet Winchell & Monica Ann 5) Amara Ononiwu 6) Kirsten Bluhm 7) Katrina Andrews.
All photos by Lina Lecaro. Read more Fashion Week coverage (Concept FW, Alternative Apparel shows) in next week’s Nightranger column.
Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.