A spring fling in the fall
Drummers, dancers, doggies, surfers, skaters and toddlers: The runway held one big happy family at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund show at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, where 10 designers gathered in mid-October to show selections from their spring collections.
The event, organized to showcase emerging design talent, was hosted by fashion’s reigning couple Kim Kardashian (pregnancy chic in an Altuzarra side-slit skirt) and Kanye West, along with Vogue’s Anna Wintour and Amazon Fashion’s Cathy Beaudoin.
The audience was starry — James Corden chatting up Reese Witherspoon; Chrissy Teigen ducking in late; “Ray Donovan” daughter Kerris Dorsey all grown up in a Marchesa bustier — alongside a who’s who of L.A. style, from Chrome Hearts’ rock ’n’ roll cofounder Laurie Stark and her daughter, singer Jesse Jo Stark, to red carpet designer Monique Lhuillier.
Everyone gathered in the garden to see work by the finalists in this year’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund program, the “Project Runway”-style design competition that’s tied more to the fashion industry than the entertainment industry. Over the years, the program has nurtured designers who have gone on to become very big deals, including Alexander Wang, Joseph Altuzarra and Prabal Gurung. This year’s winner (to be announced Monday) will receive $400,000 and mentorship from the best in the business. Amazon will support the whole group by selling selections from their spring collections online and showing the unscripted “Fashion Fund” series documenting their journeys.
This year’s crop of designers is quite diverse in terms of approach, background, inspiration and even geographical location.
Two of the collections, Baja East and Gypsy Sport, offer unisex, street-wear-inspired styles for a post-gender world. (On the runway, Baja East’s long, ivory, fringed knit vest caught my eye.)
Thaddeus O’Neil, designer of luxe men’s playwear, considers himself a surfer first and a designer second. (His twisted tropical prints cast an irreverent eye on the sunny genre of surf wear.)
Chromat’s Becca McCharen uses her background in architecture and urban planning to engineer computer-designed swim and workout wear she calls “wearable exoskeletons.” (The cord lacing details on her swimsuits and tank tops were super sexy and interesting.)
Matt and Emily Baldwin design their Baldwin denim line far away from the New York-L.A. fashion axis — in Kansas City, Kansas. (Their high-waist denim maxi skirt was a chic standout.)
I also loved CG’s neo-preppy, schoolgirl-inspired, striped pleated dress, David Hart’s colorful double-breasted men’s suits with a retro “Mad Men” flair and Cadet’s stylish flight suits.
“These finalists are designing for a world where diversity is celebrated. Technology and social media are more important, and so is respecting new ideas about gender identity,” said Mark Holgate, fashion news director at Vogue. So, rather than staging a traditional runway show, the Vogue team looked to the streets for models, casting style tribes of ravers, surfers, stompers, rockers — even stoners. The result was a crew that ranged from albino actor/dancer Shaun Ross to L.A. jewelry designer Irene Neuwirth’s Labradoodle, Teddy.
“It was great that they were all individuals,” Matt Baldwin said of the casting for the show. “It read like art.”
The concept resonated particularly well in Los Angeles, where the fashion industry is less about runway than real world attire, as in what people wear every day — denim, board shorts, Juicy Couture’s haute track suits of yesterday and Elder Statesman’s tie-dye cashmere of today.
“It’s the people on the street who inspire us,” said Baja East’s John Targon. “And they usually happen to be in L.A.”