Fashion Show October 2019 Los Angeles

Another Los Angeles Mode Week is in the rearview mirror. And, while the twice-yearly slate of runway shows, presentations and events clustered effectually the California Market Center'south market week continues to endure from a host of logistical challenges (including, but not limited to, multiple competing organizers, far-flung venues and a calendar that ends upwards stretching across 3 weeks), the standouts from Oct's recently wrapped run of manner happenings all seemed to accept one thing in mutual: seizing on what makes Southern California special.

For the sophomore outing of Vegan Manner Week, which kicked off on October. x with an awards show at the Ace Hotel in downtown 50.A., that meant tapping celebrity presenters Mena Suvari, Moby and vocalizer-songwriter Kate Nash and showcasing designers that focus on beast-free style. The outcome's creator, Paris-to-50.A. transplant Emmanuelle Rienda, said she picked the City of Angels as the place to base her event for a specific reason. "I think Los Angeles is so advanced ethically," she told The Times. "It only passed the fur ban. We banned foie gras. We have a customs that is already very vegan. … Information technology resonates with me and this movement. … I am trying to establish L.A. [every bit a] new ethical fashion destination."

L.A. Manner Week, which forged a relationship with the Petersen Automotive Museum in August of last year, returned to that Miracle Mile location for a third season of shows October. 8-12. It was notable for the number of international brands in the mix, including Lower (a South Korean footwear brand), Luooif Studio (hailing from London) and a handful of Thailand-based brands (Kanapot Aunsorn and Renim Project amid them). "On the fashion scene, a lot of brands wait at L.A. as a great PR play, a conversation starter," said event organizer Arthur Chipman. "The cool kids are in L.A., so it actually helps all these brands coming in from Australia and all these other places."

That doesn't mean in that location weren't tangible benefits to be had for the hometown brands on the docket, particularly Coral Castillo, whose October. 11 runway show was sponsored past the accounting business firm Moss Adams, longtime presenter of the Moss Adams Fashion Innovator Accolade, which comes with $5,000 worth of consulting services. "The [MAFI] is given to a designer who has done something innovative with respect to fashion and design over the past year," said the firm's Martin Hughes in presenting the award before the runway show. "And this twelvemonth'southward designer certainly deserves that award with her edgy and assuming yet beautifully feminine designs."

Castillo, who was born in Mexico City and studied mode pattern at the Fine art Institute of California, San Francisco, designs her collections in an Echo Park studio and sells them online to clients every bit close as SoCal and as far away equally the U.Grand. and Greece. She's sent previous collections down L.A.'southward runways in the past and is a business firm laic in the runway-show format. "It'due south similar magic seeing all these beautiful women in beautiful dresses," Castillo said in a backstage preshow interview. "I don't remember nosotros should lose that. I know y'all can find out all well-nigh clothes [by looking online], merely at that place's nothing like the feel of seeing information technology live. I dear that."

The designer said her most contempo spring and summertime 2020 collection was inspired by classical mythology. "I dearest how Greek people portrayed women. If you come across the goddess Nike, she'due south a woman and she's beautiful and she's the goddess of victory and strength and everything that is glorious. Think of the [Winged Victory of Samothrace] sculpture — I wanted to bring that to the runway. I want women to feel beautiful and potent and powerful and feel similar they can conquer the world if they want to."

Coral Castillo runway collection at LAFW

On the rail, that took the course of flowing dresses that mixed feminine touches — fringe, tiered ruffles and floral lace — with metal embellishments including studding and grommet-like rings. (Information technology wasn't all dresses, though; in that location was a precipitous-looking pantsuit accessorized with an asymmetrical fringe-trailing chugalug that would be the perfect ensemble for a modernistic-day goddess of victory.)

The next twenty-four hours, the scene shifted 64 miles n to a rural patch of land in Ventura County, where Fifty.A.-based designer Heidi Merrick presented her first full track collection (and her first menswear pieces) framed by grassy hills. "This identify calms me. I become more than myself when I'm hither," the designer said of the 55-acre mix of orchards, forestland and sage-filled fields exterior of Ojai. "And it gives me the inspiration to go back [to L.A.] and do stuff."

On Oct. 13, the focus was on downtown L.A., where ii things of note were unspooling. One was the second (and sold-out) Unity: Equality Fashion Week gala — organized to honour and uplift the LGBTQIA2S customs — which took place at the World Theatre and where Allison K. Joseph of Baronial Brave received the emerging designer accolade. "From designers, hair and makeup artists to models, nosotros created a platform for members of our community to smooth and increment visibility," event organizer Nik Kacy, a shoe designer and nonbinary queer activist, told The Times. "Having a safe space with inclusion and diversity is our mission, considering through exposure and visibility is where understanding and credence comes from."

The other big event was the start-ever fashion show from streetwear brand the Hundreds in collaboration with a collective of indigenous-owned labels called Obsidian, which took place on the front steps of Urban center Hall equally part of the city's official Indigenous Peoples Day celebration.

The Hundreds X Obsidian collaborative collection

On Oct. 17, Art Hearts Fashion picked upward the mantle, boot off a 4-day slate of runway shows and art installations at the Purple Downtown that marked the grouping's 13th season presenting shows in the Metropolis of Angels. The occasion was noted by the office of 50.A. Urban center Councilman José Huizar, which issued a certificate of recognition — presented earlier the nighttime'due south outset runway show — to organizer Erik Rosete for the group's "contribution to the cultural diverseness and economic contribution to the city of Los Angeles."

Charbal Zoe opens Art Hearts Fashion Week in downtown Los Angeles on October 17, 2019

That was followed past the rails bear witness of Charbel Zoe, who hails from Lebanon and whose glitz-and-glamour gowns have been seen on the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Nicki Minaj. His rail drove served up plenty of red rug-worthy looks, many festooned with intricate beading and embroidery. Despite the abundance of ruffles, tulle and frill, the collection had a certain armor-like vibe to information technology, which reminded u.s.a. of Castillo's aforementioned Victorious collection presented the previous week.

The stunner of Zoe's collection was a gown with a bodice of beaded flames and a voluminous skirt of reddish tulle that's almost certainly destined for a future awards-show red carpet.

Bharbi Hazarika contributed to this study.