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Fashion Week
CoLA, whose inception was only announced a few weeks ago, has put on
several fashion industries only events at this year's Los Angeles
Fashion Week. CoLA, which stands for "City of Los Angeles",
is not sponsored by, or affiliated with, the city of Los Angeles. As
such, the organization has decided to keep with their abbreviated
name note the lowercase "o" to avoid confusion.
In the press
release, CoLA stated that their goal is to "set the bar not only
for this season's fashion week, but every season thereafter."
This season's 3 fashion events, held at the Lady Liberty building in
downtown Los Angeles, took place on Friday, March 20 and Saturday,
March 21, 2009. The events were open by invitation only to fashion
buyers and media, though some guests had a hard time finding
exactly where the entrance to the CoLA shows was to be found.
Melissa
Magsaysay, the LA Times blogger noted that while Brittany Pham's
1940s-inspired women's wear collection
was, itself, uninspiring, her menswear collection was "really
strong and, actually wearable, most impressively, something we
haven't seen too much of from L.A. designers
who churn out leather man skirts and toothpick pants. The high-neck
wool sweaters, black jackets and slim gray wool trousers with subtle
biker detail would fit into any guy's wardrobe collection."
The runway
show for Eksempel was absent its designer, Pernille Winther. I should
think that any designer going to the effort of putting on a fashion
show for his or her collection would make every effort to attend; not
doing so sends a negative message to the fashion industry and the
media. Does the designer not care to attend? Let's hope that
extenuating circumstances kept Ms. Winther away. Though had she been
present, she would have been able to quickly clear up the mix-up
regarding her nationality: Danish, whereas Ms. Magsaysay mentions
that members of the CoLA staff were referring to her collection as
being Swedish.
Despite some
of the confusion and poor planning that plagued CoLA's first year,
Ms. Magsaysay notes positively that "the lighting track, runway
and seating were done really well and made for a pleasant fashion
show watching experience." That level of seriousness and focus
bodes well for the future of CoLA as it looks to establish itself as
a staple part of Fashion Week.
Let's hope they can iron out any other kinks in the coming seasons. |
