Spring 2008 collections from boutique designers and the eco-fashion vanguard were runway displayed this fall in Los Angeles. Industry insiders, celebrities, press, and friends watched models rock playful everyday designs and red carpet possibilities. Music tweaked, pretty strutted, and the fashion show reiterated its status as the modern theatre. Brief striking audio-visual experience, as we like it, followed and preceded by glamorous mingling, as less like it.
Christian Audigier After Natalie Reid stumbled
Tart The label loved for its pajama glamour dresses strolled out a collection
Voom by Joy Han A tech modern collection. Bright colors textured shine and classic geometric patterns. Vinyl coats. High heels high hair. Cheetah Girls Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams sported the label and delightfully finished each other’s sentences as they recounted getting ready together in the hotel room they’re staying in while they move into a new LA apartment. Adrienne pronounced that she’s into, "Dresses. I’m a girly girl, so I like dresses. I think the easiest way to get dressed is one piece one item, keep it pushing."
Evidence of Evolution A nymph sexy Midsummer Night’s awakening. Actor Adrian Grenier concluded after the show, "You can be environmentally friendly and fashionable. It’s proven," and designer Ali Alborzi added, "And it doesn’t have to be boring."
Backstage at Evidence, actor/director/model Vincent Gallo spun high fashion yarns: "I could go girls clothing shopping seven days a week and be in heaven…Taking a girl for clothes is the best date you can ever go on.
Oligo Tissew High fashion simplicity. Basic t-shirts and jersey dresses tweaked sexy by the eye of a designer. Women will feel comfortable, men will be impressed by their beautiful lack of effort.
Monarchy Aggressive trust fund cool. Jaded children of investment bankers. Conservative classics, hipster attitude. The grownup crowd at Smashbox was put off, but teenagers and young 20s forced to dress up will buy it.
Peligrosa Easeful, refined standards and accessories designed in LA, manufactured by family-owned factories in Japan. The spring collection utilizes organic cotton, wool, cashmere, and recycled cotton, dyed by-hand with organic and low-impact dyes. Designer Nico Morrison commented that, "A variety of venues are providing professional service and attempting to bring more attention to LA fashion. Our entertainment epicenter should be catered to in a more natural way – having fashion support entertainment arts and vice versa, in a way that flows organically with life in LA. LA is not Paris and shouldn’t try to be, we are an incredibly unique city with a unique outlook and lifestyle."
Samora Conservative European glamour. Notes of German imperialism and a Grecian spring. Backstage before the show model Heather Brown described what it is like to walk in a fashion show: "Natural, like walking down the street. It doesn’t affect me. I love performing in front to of people and it doesn’t affect me at all. I love walking the runway. The preparation before that, I don’t love it. Like sitting here I get bored." Less relevant to her elegant dream Goddess walk down the Samora runway, Heather talked of her swimwear design ambitions and her love of swimsuit modeling. When asked if having so much of her body exposed in a swimsuit worried her, she replied, "I feel more comfortable that way actually. I feel comfortable in my skin. Naked and comfortable." Bold and sexy, but also just the practical mindset of a model.
Jenny Han Luscious poolside day-to-evening art prints. "Bauhaus, graphic, pop art, all of that was such a huge inspiration for me," said the designer on the collection.
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Spring 2008 fashion shows in LA this fall of 2007 were green black laidback and other. Less-destroyed jeans, craft activated t-shirts, fly-by mini-dresses, silk synthetic sheens, bamboo and organic cotton. Comfort glamour, pop utopian California dreams of a future sustained in style. Celebrities have analyzed, models have walked and talked, we will have clothes to wear come spring.
Link: Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios https://www.mbfashionweek.com/losangeles/