Posts with tag la fashion week

It's no secret that this year's fashion season is struggling against a super weak economy. You had to know something was wrong when designers like Vera Wang and Betsey Johnson dropped out of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, and then FW teamed up with McDonald's to promote McCafe. At LA Fashion Week, one of Kevan Hall's designs featured freeze-dried cranberries to promote Dial's new cranberry body wash.

We recently caught up with rising star Yotam Solomon, who was the youngest designer ever to show at Los Angeles Fashion Week. This Israeli-born prodigy is already an editorial favorite and has been featured in Women's Wear Daily and British Vogue for his beautiful ready to wear collections as well as his amazingly cutting edge, high fashion shoe designs.

Michael Buckner is a fashion and celebrity photographer who travels around the world taking pictures on the red carpet. He gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the hottest entertainment industry events.


Models in bikinis headlined the second day of the last Mercedes Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios since celebrities were a no-show at Ed Hardy by Christian Audigier.

Michael Buckner is a fashion and celebrity photographer who travels around the world taking pictures on the red carpet. He gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the hottest entertainment industry events.


The grand finale of IMG's Mercedes Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios in Culver City is upon us. After 10 arduous seasons of t-shirts, jeans and cotton jersey dresses, the event organizer and the host are parting ways. And sadly, this may be the last runway I shoot for a long while. I'll spare you my emotional breakdown.

Much like people who fancy inserting chocolate chip cookies inside of their sandwiches before digesting them, we've always found LA Fashion Week somewhat odd, and to that end, kind of unnecessary.

No, we're not snobs. Although, our blogs new face lift has boosted the sheer wittiness of our posts! Seriously, it's just that we've never understood why someone would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on runway shows of collections that are currently be stocked in malls and worn by people.

Well, IMG and events planner Smashbox Studios must have been pondering a similar existential question as ours because last week they announced they would be eschewing future plans to continue to produce LA Fashion Week.

On the break-up, Davis Factor, who co-owns Smashbox told the LA Times: "My opinion is that they just didn't have the time to dedicate toward cultivating this event on a year-round basis. Nothing against IMG, but I think that New York is their big focus and it's difficult with everything they have going on all over the world. It would be hard for them to do LA on the level they do New York. My brother and I can."

So yeah. This is the last time Miss Lauren Conrad will be able to parade her jersey looks down a real runway. That is, of course, if she doesn't make the move to New York Fashion Week next season. Uh, syke!

[via Vogue UK]

After my head stopped spinning from the horror called IMASU by Kelly Nishimoto I needed two things ... a cocktail and a better runway show. I suppose I got both with Orthodox but I have a sneaking suspicion the cocktail helped me enjoy the second show more.

The show was short with only 22 looks in the collection and showcased both men's and women's fashions. The overall feel to me was slacker chic, which was the perfect match for the Nirvana cover song they played to open the show. Some key trends I picked out of the collection were metallics, geek glasses, ombre, purple, and gloves.

The great thing about the collection is that it was very wearable and that is exactly what I have to come to expect during LA Fashion Week shows. There was a fair amount of black and white in collection, which is perfect for mixing and matching. Nothing in the collection was too over-the-top so you could literally rip the clothes right off the runway and be on your way.

It looks like LA Fashion Week is starting to look up after all.

The highlight of LA Fashion Week for me was chatting with accessories designer Tarina Tarantino. I remember it like it was yesterday. There I was staring at the beautiful people when I saw this magnificent head of pink hair. It was Tarina.

If you aren't familiar with Tarina Tarantino, she is an LA-based jewelry designer who creates fun and girly accessories for the fashion-forward. She often draws inspiration from skulls, Barbie, Hello Kitty, and other adorable things. Celebrities like Hilary Duff, Paris Hilton, and Avril Lavigne are fans of her designs. I completely flip out for all of her designs, especially her Pink Head accessories (Hello Kitty with a head of pink hair).

Not to be a gushing fashionista stalker or anything, but Tarina is the nicest person ever. She showed me the ins and outs of her handbag, which she designed herself. The handbag she was carrying is part of her new handbag line that can be found in her boutiques or online.

My personal favorite is a limited edition clutch, pictured. The small clutch is made of pink vinyl, white leather and a Swarovksi crystal bow that doubles as a hand strap. The real kicker is the detachable chain that connects to a series of lucite bangles. Each bag comes with a certificate of authenticity and is designed with love from Tarina.

The third day of LA Fashion Week featured collections by Gregory Parkinson, Jenny Han, Christian Audigier, Dina Bar-El, Grey Ant and Whitley Kros.

My favorite show of the day was Dina Bar-El. Last year, Bar-El came under heavy criticism for using child models in her show, so as you might expect, the show was juvey-free this time around. I do have one gripe for Ms. Bar-El: what's up with all the white girls? Come on, Dina, get with the program.

However, if you can overlook her homogeneous choice in models, Bar-El's clothes were wonderful. Her evening wear was particularly stunning this time around. I loved the silk gowns in rich jewel tones and her plucky cocktail dresses with striking necklines. The simple makeup and sleek hair was also right on target.

My least favorite show was without question Christian Audigier's presentation. The catwalk/stage was set for high drama -- there was even moody lighting and music to match. To tell you the truth, I kind of think that the combination of the busy clothes and overwhelming set left me agitated. Consequently, I've got no love for the clothes either.

I wasn't sure what the designer was hoping to create. Some of the clothes had a 1920s Jazz Age feel -- flapper dresses, feather boas, cropped hair -- and I liked that part. However, some outfits looked like they were Jodie Foster's castoffs from the set of the movie Taxi Driver. Trust me, underage prostitute is not a good look. I also hated Audigier's makeup: red lips and dark eyes. Most models can't handle dramatic eyes and lips, and they end up looking like tweaked-out trannies.

Adding all of this up, if you can image an underage, tweaked-out trannie prostitute in a feather boa, you basically get Christian Audigier's Spring/Summer 08 collection. You can also check out the woman pictured at right.

We've picked out some of our favorites and our, well, least favorites for the Styledash LA Fashion Week Gallery. Let us know what you think.

Here are a few shots to check out:

Monday was the second day of shows at Smashbox Studios in LA, which included collections by Ecoganik, Coco Johnsen, Kevan Hall, Elsie Katz Couture, Joseph Domingo and, of course, Heatherette.

Adult film star Jenna Jameson once again opened up the Heatherette show with a duck-lipped bang. I can't say that I loved Heatherette's trailer-trash, kitschy Americana clothes. Actually, I can't even say that I liked them, but I feel a certain affinity for a label that survives by selling pricey clothes destined for the no-go-zone of your town's sketchiest Goodwill. I kid you not -- Vegas showgirls would have a hard time donning some of these get-ups. Jenna Jameson sure loves them though. Draw your own conclusions.

My favorite show yesterday was Elsie Katz Couture. Like the Chick by Nicky Hilton show on Sunday, the Elsie Katz Couture was made up of really great ready-to-wear fashions. I loved her use of color as well as her surprising hemlines (i.e.: Do my eyes deceive me or is that a tea-length gown?). Kudos are also due to Katz stylists -- the hair was amazing. I also like seeing non-blond models on the catwalk (model at right notwithstanding). Believe it or not, I think her interesting casting choices made the show stand out most of all.

We've picked out some of our favorites and our, well, least favorites for the Styledash LA Fashion Week Gallery. Let us know what you think.

Here are a few shots to check out:

I am familiar with Literature Clothing, but know it for its graphic-printed t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies and mostly casual pants. Seeing the Literature Fall 2007 collection during LA Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios was a little bit of a surprise, though I expected something different from a line called "Literature Noir." Everything was a little more dressed up. The women were in short little skirts and dresses, with a featured black print on nude/khaki (right, in the image above) that showed up on several babydolls and a long gown. In fact, I almost fell over myself for the babydoll shown. Some of the pieces were a little odd, like the black smock shown in the middle, which looked a little too much like a smock you'd throw on at the beauty parlor, particuarly with the hair styling on the models. Otherwise, not a bad showing from Literature Noir for Fall 2007.

Alvin Valley's Fall 2007 collection, while at first did almost nothing for me, is kind of growing on me. I thought the colors were typical and the designs somewhat boring except the strange shape on the voluminous pants, but after thinking about it for a while, I realized that while it was rather ho-hum, they were all very wearable. I love the loose comfort of cowl necks, simple dresses, and especially the smart little silver dress in the middle of the photos above. The dress is pretty, no doubt, even girlish with that big fat bow at the waist, but how much can you love pockets on an evening-ish dress?

I think I might have found the collection that made my Fashion Week: Joey Tierney.

Granted, it's not often, no, pretty much it never happens, that an entire collection will make me say "yes," and though Joey Tierney's Fall 2007 collection wasn't 100% perfect, I liked a lot of it. Tierney's palette was mostly black with some rich jewel-ized green. I am not fond of wearing green, but it was a nice refreshing change from all the typical autumn colors. I'm getting a little tired of shorts, but I loved all her use of sheers, whether it was lace shirt or sheer fabric on an evening gown, not that I could actually see someone wearing a sheer gown in public like that. Then again, this is LA and anything goes.

As you well know now, while we made it inside Boulevard 3 for the event that was co-sponsored by 944 Magazine, we never made it into the actual runway show for 2 B Free's Fall 2007 collection. Doesn't matter though, because from what I can tell, we didn't miss too much. None of the pieces nor complete "looks" were all that different from one another, nor were they all that different from any of the other graphic-print, slightly rocker-chic inspired California casual knit wear that we have seen for years from a number of designers. Bright colors, reactive dyes, layers, t-shirts, and hoodies that can be worn from the grocery store to dinner on Sunset Blvd were nothing, and I mean nothing, we haven't seen before. The one thing that deserves mention, though, is how shockingly "plump" and slightly awkward Paris Hilton looks on the runway. Paris is, of course, a very thin girl, and yet, by comparison to the models, she looked normal. For the models, that's frightening.

We made it, y'all. We barely made it through LA Fashion Week last week on the little amount of actualy food I ate and the even less amount of sleep. You see, the runway shows were during the afternoons, so yo'd expect that I could rush right home and blog the reviews, but oh no. Some of the "unofficial" shows that were were not held on-site at Smashbox Studios were later at night. Basically, the night shows were just an excuse to party.

2BFree was one of the designers who did their show elsewhere. They teamed up with 944, a lifestyle site and magazine, and took over Boulevard 3, a new "event space" in Hollywood. I'll do a short write-up of the runway show I didn't see (I'll explain later), but for now, let's just talk about the club chaos that was the 944 party.

About a month ago, we posted about how New York Magazine followed the diets of four people fom the fashion world during New York's Fall 2007 Fashion Week. With all of the hype about skinny models and low BMIs, we would have expected to see the diets of the two models to include pretty much just water and uh, water? We were wrong. As it turns out, it was the fashion magazine editor who ate the least!

Well, I'm here to surprise us even more! It seems that a fashion and food blogger eats almost as little as a magazine editor! Yes, kittens, I decided it would be fun to do the same thing while covering LA Fashion Week last week so I kept track of everything I ingested (except a few bottles of water here and there) for the five days of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

Based on my diet I think I'm okay as a fashion blogger, but I might have lost my street cred as a food blogger! I rarely ate breakfast other than coffee and vitamins, I ate a few salads for lunch, almost nothing for dinner. The detailed diary is over on Slashfood.