Swinging from the Chandeliers

Designer Jared Gold is back, and he is going to dress you, light
up your life and maybe even sleep with you, in a manner of speaking. After taking
off the past two seasons — and moving last year to Salt Lake City where he restructured
his various collections into a publicly traded company called Dark Dynamite
Inc. — Gold returns with expanded lines and an expansive vision: high-end design
at budget prices. “Good design doesn’t cost any more than bad design,” notes
Gold, an agent provocateur who once staged a show of his adventurous gothic-punk
Victoriana women’s-wear line in an alley downtown. This mischievous sensibility
— he also created brooches out of live Madagascar cockroaches — infuses Pink
Chandelier, his first foray into children’s wear.




He’s also launched a still-expanding version of his line Black
Chandelier, which currently includes collections of women’s and skateboard wear,
with ’tween and men’s to debut in March at L.A.’s Fashion Week when he will
show all five collections. And if all that wasn’t keeping him busy enough in
Salt Lake — where he’s renovating an 1886 Victorian building and where he recently
opened his first Black Chandelier store — he has a home line called The Genevieve
(linens, candles, stationery and lighting) coming out this Valentine’s Day.
“I still consider myself an L.A. designer,” says Gold, who’s currently scouting
locations for the Black Chandelier store he plans to open in L.A. in the spring.
“I still have the mindset.” Black Chandelier is available at www.blackchandelier.com
and Pink Chandelier is available at www.pinkchandelier.com.

—Kateri Butler

In the Raw

Raw 7’s rock & roll princess-wear can be accessorized by a string
of pearls or a studded dog collar. Or both. It’s for the girl who’s naughty-nice.
Designer Marisol Gerona —


Raw 7


an L.A. local who cut her thread, so to speak, at Ralph Lauren
doing menswear and went on to do floaty froth for Harari — is inspired by skater
styles and streetwear.

She works in cashmere and cotton knits, creating a kind of gloriously
prim Grace Kelly–type cardigan which is then emblazoned with vintage tattoo
flash, pop art and graffiti-inspired graphics. Each piece gets a sprinkling
of beads and rhinestones and is sewn up with retro Western-wear embroidery —
making it as much a multimedia work of art as something to keep you warm. Raw
7 is available at Intuition and Kitson; the line also includes hoodies, scarves,
T-shirts and ponchos.

—Pleasant Gehman

All the News That’s Fit to Carry

Designer Carolyn Polonsky puts a new spin on recycling and vintage:
She takes covers of defunct tabloids from the Eisenhower and Kennedy eras and
turns them into totes. Unusual touches like steel-cable handles give the bags
an industrial allure while the fact that they’re fashioned from plastic-coated
tabloid pages means you’ll always have something to read.

With bold black-and-white images of faded starlets and L.A.-noir
headlines worthy of a Danny DeVito voiceover (“The Truth About Fetish!” “Sex
Habits of Savage Gun Dolls!”), the bags are guaranteed attention-getters.


The tabloid bags


For those seeking an accessory more sweet than sordid, next spring
Polonsky will put out an eye-popping line with covers ripped from the heartthrob-filled
pages of Tiger Beat and Teen. Available at www.retroviva.net.

—Madelynn Amalfitano

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