Two-day Rock Fashion Week L.A. closes out a month of runways

 

Gen Art's Fresh Faces in Fashion event returned to the Petersen Automotive Museum this season, presenting the Spring 2010 runway collections of  Leyendecker, Seneca Rising, MG Black Label menswear, Valerj Pobega and Rory Beca.

The most memorable among them was Pobega's "Bondage collection," which added a layer of Japanese bondage influence to her 1920s-meets-punk culture aesthetic, with deconstructed kimono dresses, silk charmeuse cocoon coats and irregular circle skirts, hand-dyed, stained and screen printed to look rust-flecked, rope-wrapped and ink-dripped.

From Paramount to Petersen: Rock Fashion Week LA to shift venues

Even before its full line-up of designers has been released (we're told that should happen soon), the highest profile addition to the Los Angeles Fashion Week/Month landscape has announced it will be shifting venues from the historic Paramount Studios lot on Melrose Avenue to the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Boulevard.

A Rock Fashion Week LA representative told the Rage that the organizers had been so focused on the recent merger of the Rock Media and Gen Art entities that the decision was made to hold the event in a space that's already been event tested (the Petersen has been home to assorted Gen Art Los Angeles Fashion Week events over the years).

"There's no problem between them and Paramount," KPR's Alison Kennedy assured us. "It's just more efficient at this point for them to stage the shows in a place that's more familiar."

Kennedy confirmed that the dates remain Oct. 29 through Oct. 31 and will end with a lingerie-company-sponsored Halloween party. She also said that Alicia Lawhon, who's scheduled to debut a new line on the Oct. 29 as part of the Gen Art line-up, was bowing out due to personal reasons and would be replaced by designer Valerj Pobega.

-- Adam Tschorn

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More news from Los Angeles Fashion Week/Month

It's October, a.ka. Los Angeles Fashion Month

Welcome to October in Los Angeles, where the concept of fashion week as it exists in cities like Milan, Paris, New York and London has been folded, spindled and mutilated into a month-long series of fashion-themed installations, events – and even a Halloween party -- punctuated by the occasional old-school runway show. Charitable causes abound, Hollywood studios are the new tents (while we aren't exactly taking credit for it, we did suggest just that in last year's Fantasy Fashion Week story) and there's more partnering up than a '70s key party.

As in past seasons, most remain invite-only affairs geared toward the media and buyers, although a few are selling tickets to the fashion-loving public.

Among the events:

October 13-16 Downtown Los Angeles Fashion Week

None other than Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa himself has thrown his weight behind this hybrid event -- a mix of presentations, runway shows and mixers -- back for a sophomore season. This time

around, it will include a handful of runway shows and presentations from the likes of Louis Verdad (showing his Louver Collection), Eduardo Lucero, and Oliver Tolentino, as well as a showcase of up-and-coming Israeli designers dubbed Mode Israel.

What does the Gen Art/Rock Media merger mean for L.A. Fashion Week?

It looks like Gen Art, the prettiest girl at the L.A. Fashion Week dance, is getting hitched.

On Wednesday, the showcase for emerging fashion designers announced plans to merge with Rock Media & Entertainment effective Sept. 15. That's the same day their first joint effort -- Gen Art's 15th anniversary Fresh Faces in Fashion show in New York City --  takes place as the finale of the Style360 shows.

We're told the new entity will change its name to the somewhat unwieldy acronym RMGA, LLC, -- though we delicately suggest a letter scramble to make it something a little more fun and memorable like GRAM(with the tagline "fashion isn't heavy"), and be helmed by the founding partners of each company. Rock's Scott Rosenblum will be the chief executive, Gen Art's Ian Gerard and Rock's Nicole Purcell will serve as co-presidents and Gen Art's Stefan Gerard will be the chief operating officer for the new company.

So how, exactly, will all this boardroom gobbledygook affect what happens here in the 323 (and the 213, 818 and the 310). Most immediately, the L.A. installment of Gen Art's Fresh Faces in Fashion will be folded into Rock Media's four-day fashion showcase that's scheduled to unspool Oct. 28 to 31 at Paramount Studios. We're told it will take place Oct. 29.

Longer term, it takes one of the belles of the L.A. Fashion Week ball off the dance floor. Over the years, Gen Art has been the most consistent twice yearly presence in Los Angeles, and after several seasons of rumored partnerships with the assorted upstart groups trying to gain a toehold in the L.A. runway racket, teamed up with BOXeight in March for one night of runway shows. 

It also indicates that 2-year-old Rock Media, which despite producing events in Miami and New York City is a relative unknown on the Los Angeles runway circuit, seems serious about the scene. (It should be noted that although we usually focus on Gen Art's fashion projects, the group also showcases emerging film and music talent.)

LAFW: Gen Art/BOXeight Runway Video

Say what you will about the state of L.A. Fashion Week, the crowd that turned out to the Gen Art/BOXeight kickoff brought their party clothes.

It was Goths on parade last night at Gen Art.  Both Grai and Raquel Allegra sent out a lineup of dark and drapey collections that had the girls looking like Morticia and the boys like Eddie Munster, right down to the slicked-back hair, pronounced widow’s peaks and cropped pants.

Gen Art/BOXeight join forces for L.A. Fashion Week

What the upcoming fashion week in Los Angeles will look like came into a little sharper focus today as Gen Art announced it was joining forces with BOXeight "to revitalize L.A. Fashion Week" with a trio of runway shows by local designers on March 13 at the Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway in downtown L.A.

"In light of the economic situation, it made sense to join forces with BOXeight," Gen Art representative Shana Glick told me this afternoon. "It would have been difficult for us to have the same event we are used to having." Glick also said that the size of the venue would allow the groups to sell close to 1,000 tickets to members of the general public (from $40 to $75 and available at www.genart.org or by calling [323] 782-9367).

The evening's schedule is set to include a reception at 7 p.m., a seated runway show at 8 -- featuring designs by GRAI, Raquel Allegra and Society for Rational Dress -- and an after-party scheduled to kick off at 9.

That evening marks the start of BOXeight's fashion schedule, which that group's founder, Pete Gurnz, says will include two more days of runway shows featuring at least 16 extra designers. "We're discussing some other possible content on additional days," Gurnz said. "But that's not finalized."

According to its website, a separate event, dubbed Downtown LA Fashion Week has two days of yet-to-be-announced fashion events scheduled for Wednesday, March 18, and Thursday, March 19, and has reportedly secured space at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. Its organizers told us this afternoon that they would be announcing full details shortly.

Gurnz told us back in December that he had no intention of making BOXeight the de facto standard-bearer of L.A. Fashion Week, so we asked him again today if he felt the same way.

"Let's put it this way," he said. "That was never our goal, but we're ready, willing and able to accept that responsibility with open arms."

Sounds like the man needs a fashion week group hug. Anyone?

-- Adam Tschorn

Photos: (top) a look from Maxine Dillon's collection that showed at Gen Art's Fresh Faces in Fashion show in Los Angeles on Oct. 10, 2008. Photo by Ann Johansson/For The L.A. Times. (Bottom) a look from Yotam Solomon's BOXeight show in L.A. on Oct. 17, 2008. Photo by Michael Robinson Chavez/Los Angeles Times.

Nerdy glasses: the new "it" bag

Full disclosure: I've always been partial to so-called BCGs, or "birth control glasses" -- the chunky, squarish eyeglass frames that got their name from the standard-military-issue specs worn in the '60s. I wear a pair of goggle-like black ones from L.A. Eyeworks called, daintily enough, "Hedgehogs." (Palin's frameless glasses might as well be contacts, people.)

But prominent eyewear is definitely having a fashion moment. Last night at the Gen Art "Fresh Faces in Fashion" event at the Petersen Automotive Museum, I spotted at least a dozen revelers in vintage or retro-feeling specs: from Bjorn Borg-style tortoise-shell and metal frames to Ray-Ban-esque shapes to those round, colored '70s models the size of teacup saucers. (Julia Gogosha, owner of the new Gogosha Optique eyewear boutique in Silverlake, surveyed the dense crowd from behind magnificently chunky, glittery-black frames.)

BCGs have also popped up on the runways -- models at Michael Kors' fall show affected "sexy secretaries" in heavy, tortoiseshell frames, a la "Mad Men". And hip L.A. labels Rose and Mike & Chris both outfitted their models in chunky specs for their spring look books. 

Who says guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses?

-- Emili Vesilind

Photo: Bespectacled hipsters at Gen Art's "Fresh Faces in Fashion" last night Los Angeles Times /Emili Vesilind.