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Refocusing fashion: Los Angeles' climb up the style stakes through art

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REFOCUSING FASHION:
LOS ANGELES’ CLIMB UP THE STYLE STAKES THROUGH ART

by

Noelle Loh

_____________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM (THE ARTS))

May 2010

Copyright 2010 Noelle Loh
ii
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful towards the members of my thesis committee for their
time, patience, guidance and understanding. Sasha and Tim, thank you for always
encouraging me and letting me do my own thing. Professor Berney, thank you for
saving me in the nick of time.
iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iv
Chapter One: Is it Art? Is it Fashion? 1
Chapter Two: Art Inc. 4
Chapter Three: State of the Art 8
Chapter Four: Artistic Identity 15
Bibliography 20
iv
Abstract
Los Angeles is often better known for producing fashion that is more casual
and commercial friendly than cool and cutting edge. Defying this stereotype however
is a group of designers whose work and working methods are more similar with the
artists who have come to make L.A. a world-renowned cultural capital. These style
innovators, along with several organizations in the form of event production
companies, art institutions and retailers, have come to challenge the common
perception of what L.A. fashion is about by playing up the art association. Through
interviews and historical research, this article examines the way these individuals
and organizations work, their motives behind what they do and how they collectively
attempt to show a side to L.A. fashion that is often overlooked by the international
fashion scene.

1
Chapter One: Is it Art? Is it Fashion?
Imagine standing in a cavernous gallery that is pitch black save for a
luminously lit, wide, white screen at a corner of the room. In front, lithe, leggy
models preen and pose under spotlights, perched on boxes and latticework metal
frames or dangling from ropes like acrobats. Their hair is tossed slick or adorned
with over-the-top headpieces like towering, razor-sharp mohawks and bouncy Afros
the size of beach balls. Their clothes are just as, if not more, madcap.
Among them are an Arabian-esque empire-waist, floor-length gown with
sleeves that flow beyond it, created by Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based designer
Lloyd Klein who is known for his deftness with drapery. An asymmetrical leather
collar piece designed by fast-rising L.A. fashion star and “Project Runway” alumni
Jerell Scott gives new meaning to knock-out style, studded and constructed into a
curve to resemble armor. A feathered frock by local label Skingraft, known for its
dark and dangerous aesthetic, meanwhile embodies fashion’s fetish with flights of
fancy, its leather shoulder strap adorned with a palm-sized faux bird’s head.
As the models move silently to thumping electro music blasting over the
sound system, photographers capture their trance-like dance on camera, oblivious to
the cocktail-toting crowd that jams the room.
The scene resembles that of some uber-hip New York installation art
exhibition. This however is BOXeight’s Spring 2010 Los Angeles Fashion Week
showcase.
2
Organized by the local photography-cum-design firm in its downtown studio
last October, the three-day-long affair was meant to challenge the prevailing notion
of L.A. as the style capital of slop.
Thanks to its subtropical climate and strong sea-and-surf culture, the city is
popularly associated with fashion known better for its comfort levels than cool
quotient. In 2008 Reuters reported that despite growth of over 60 per cent in the
previous 11 years, L.A.’s fashion industry still lags behind New York partly because
most of the design work here is geared towards more commercial friendly casual
wear (Sage, 2008). Combine this with Hollywood’s fondness for flashiness and the
result is what lifestyle reporter Nora Zelevansky calls “a longstanding reputation for
bleached, implanted and botoxed blonds in bedazzled magenta tanks” (Los Angeles
Times, November 22, 2009).
In an interview at his studio, Peter Grunz, 30, BOXeight’s founder and chief
executive officer, says:
L.A. is a melting pot of creative energy. Our audience is also made up of very
creative people who expect a lot yet it’s the skull and bone tee-shirt
companies that are ruining it for everyone, giving the city a global [fashion]
image that is different from what is actually going on (Grunz, 2009).

To set things straight, he ditched the successful runway presentations he had
been doing every season since getting involved in Fashion Week here in 2007. He
then pulled together what he estimates to be nearly 100 of the city’s most cutting-
edge fashion talents for the out-of-the-box fashion showcase last year.
3
Aside from labels like Skingraft and Jerell Scott, stylists such as Jill Roth and
Gabe de Dios and photographers, including Patrick Hoelck and Grunz himself had
their turn in the spotlight at the live photo shoot-style fashion extravaganza.
L.A.-based lifestyle magazine Flaunt, known for its creative editorial design
and introspective articles, documented part of the event in a 38-page spread released
in January 2010 and aptly titled “Fashion: Refocus”.
Says Grunz:
If we are really going to help the [city’s] fashion industry, we need to
highlight the entire industry and re-identify to the world that L.A. fashion is
not a joke. The way we can do that is to do it differently from how it happens
in any other place. So we said, ‘let’s do art’.
4
Chapter Two: Art Inc.
Fashion-meets-art initiatives are increasingly the buzz in the City of Angels,
spearheaded by organizations such as BOXeight, art institutions and retailers who
work closely with the city’s innovative fashion designers.
According to Jennifer Egan, 35, vice-president of national business
development at Gen-Art, the number of fashion-events-gone-arty has increased
nationwide by as much as 60 per cent since 2005. And L.A. is among the leaders
(Egan, 2009).
Gen-Art, which has offices in L.A. and New York, has for the past 15 years
specialized in organizing art and entertainment events that provide exposure to
creative talents and put them in touch with potential buyers and collectors. Shows
and parties that integrate art, fashion, film and music are the norm. The company has
in fact been backing fashion with art literally through its annual New Garde initiative
launched in 2004.
Held during L.A. Fashion Week’s fall presentation schedule every March, the
event showcases the work of three emerging, avant-garde designers on the site of
specially customized installation art exhibits. New Garde has since been introduced
to New York and San Francisco but Egan says the concept has its roots in L.A.
She explains in a phone interview: “New Garde was conceived in order to
give context to the concepts of designers whose clothes aren’t runway appropriate.”
The debut New Garde show for example featured Coryn Madley, known for
her ornate, eclectic-yet-elegant pieces made with anything from hand-dyed yarn to
5
hand-painted leather; the label Cosa Nostra by Jeffrey Sebelia, who went on to win
season three of Project Runway in 2006 with his trademark zipper-heavy, punk-
infused style to which he added a party-princess touch for the television show’s
closing challenge; and Society for Rational Dress, designed by Corrine Grassini
whose versatile, deceptively simple-looking apparel can be layered to create
dramatic silhouettes.
Says Egan: “Their [clothing] line tends to be more esoteric aesthetically and
therefore better understood within the context of the inspiration behind them. The
clothes [are in turn] better informed through a dynamic installation versus a
conveyor belt-style runway show.”
The fusion of art into fashion – or vice versa – is certainly no Angeleno
invention.
Costume and art historian, Alice Mackrell, dates the link between the two
fields as far back as to 14
th
century Italy when the early fathers of Renaissance
painting – greats like Jacopo Bellini and Antonio Pisanello – not only paid detailed
attention to clothing in their work, but also designed textile patterns (Mackrell,
2005). Modern day couturists from Europe such as Elsa Schiaparelli, the whimsical
Italian designer; Cristobal Balenciaga, easily Spain’s foremost clothing craftsman;
and the famed Yves Saint Laurent from France further trod the thin line between
artist and designer.
Schiaparelli had a penchant for graphic prints and once, together with
Salvador Dali, famously turned a high-heeled shoe into a hat. Balenciaga re-sculpted
6
the female form with the creation of the sack dress, cocoon coat and high-waist baby
doll frock. Saint Laurent put Mondrian-esque block shapes and colors onto shift
dresses and, not unlike rebellious artists who explored gender bender themes, put
women into men’s tuxedo suits.
Beginning in the 1980s museums such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum
of Art (MOMA) and Paris’ Musee du Louvre have been placing these designers’
masterpieces alongside more conventional forms of fine art. MOMA, for example,
held a retrospective exhibition of Saint Laurent’s work between 1983 and 1984
(Mackrell, 2005).
In an essay in the 2009 book “The Art of Fashion: Installing Allusions”, Jose
Teunissen, a former fashion and costume curator at Utrecht’s Centraal Museum, says
of the inherent connection between art and fashion: “[Fashion] is concerned with the
creation of a self-image, the experience of the body, identity and the relationship
between the ‘I’ and its environment… Some people considered fashion better
positioned than the visual arts to investigate this terrain” (Teunissen, 2009).
As early as the 1970s, artists like Rebecca Horn and Helen Chadwick were
using fashion elements ranging from fabrics to feathers in their performances and
sculptures to comment on the female form. In comparison L.A. fashion’s progressive
pack – be it designers such as Jerell Scott and Coryn Madley or organizations such as
BOXeight and Gen-Art – would thus seem far from avant-garde. At the very best
they are among the many contemporary cool kids continuing to dance the enduring
waltz between art and fashion.
7
BOXeight’s Grunz for example admits that artist-designer types are not
unique to L.A., nor are their numbers necessarily higher than in other cities. He adds
that, given the right support, his fashion presentation-as-installation idea could be as
successful elsewhere (Grunz, 2009).
What makes L.A. the fetching new poster child of those natural bedfellows,
art and fashion, however is a certain undeniable je nais se quoi.
8
Chapter Three: State of the Art
As much as they have spawned a whole industry of mass-oriented casual
wear companies, L.A.’s carefree city-meets-coast culture and sun-kissed scenery
have also attracted a milieu of creative types who see it as a land of opportunity
where anything goes. Competitive rental rates, low compared to the east coast art
capital of New York, are an added bonus. To date the city lays claims to Toronto-
born Deconstructivist architect Frank Gehry, who moved here in the 1940s, and
Nebraska-native pop art artist Ed Ruscha, who arrived a decade later, among its
many celebrated cultural transplants.
The sense of freedom, as Zelevansky points out in the Los Angeles Times,
encourages experimentation, giving birth to fashion designers with a distinct artistic
streak (Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2009).
Names like Brian Lichtenberg, Michel Berandi and Skingraft duo, Katie Kay
and Jonny Cota, (all of whom incidentally have studios in L.A.’s artist enclaves like
Downtown and Silver Lake) may not be in the same league as Balenciaga or YSL.
But they might as well not even bother – because they do not have to.
If the styles produced by the European masters are considered high fashion,
the work of these L.A.-born or based designers stand strong at the other end of the
sartorial spectrum, informed no doubt by the gritty-meets-hip street culture that
surrounds them.
9
Think intricately detailed, carefully constructed leathers and weaves and, in
the case of Lichtenberg, whimsical, optical prints that go onto tees, dresses and lace
leggings. This is L.A.’s own brand of couture no less worthy of being called art.
BOXeight’s Grunz, who counts Berandi and Skingraft among his favorite
L.A. labels, says:
They’re intensely creative people who produce very fashion-forward clothing
that is very young, very indie. But they are also incredible designers that have
complete [business] infrastructures within their fashion houses and are
relevant every season, constantly re-inventing themselves and offering new
concepts, new creations, new materials. They are impossible not to root for.

Rhianon Jones, who co-owns Echo Park boutique E.P.I.C, or the Echo Park
Independent Co-op, that stocks over 40 local designers including Lichtenberg, offers
similar support. She says in a face-to-face interview: “The film industry here
probably overshadows all the other artistic communities in L.A. but designers make
the same [creative] product, just of a different color” (Jones, 2010). With a knowing
grin, she adds: “We have been to the studios of some of the designers we carry and,
let me tell you, they are artists.”
At the same time L.A.’s cool and casual attitude has raised a generation of
artists daring and willing to cross creative fields.
Shamim Momin, 36, former contemporary curator at New York’s Whitney
Museum of American Art, says L.A. artists have some of the most adventurous,
diverse work practices, making crossover collaborations a cinch and all the more
dynamic (Momin, 2009). This is exactly why she chose the city to be the base of
10
non-profit arts organization Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), which she co-
founded last year.
LAND specializes in organizing collaborative art exhibitions without being
confined to a single site or institution, using instead – in Momin’s words – “the city
as a whole campus”. As part of its launch celebrations in January, it partnered with
American label Calvin Klein for an event at a specially customized space across
from the Pacific Design Centre in West Hollywood that showcased an energetic
fashion-art ménage a trois.
The trendy threesome comprised of Calvin Klein allies, Korean-American
artist Jean Shin and British curator Neville Wakefield, both of whom reprised their
installations inspired by the brand’s spring 2010 collection first shown in Seoul last
December; and newbie, L.A-based artist Jennifer West, who debuted four abstract
short films created by manipulating the celluloid with substances ranging from black
eyeliner to Bloody Mary mix.
Momin says she had handpicked West for the event because her work deals
with issues of gender and self-presentation, relating to fashion in a “very interesting
thematic way” without being contrived.
L.A. is a fascinating city – it has extraordinary realms of art, music and
fashion – and I hope to see a greater nexus [between the different realms] in
terms of audience and context as long as the identity and integrity of the
space and talents involved are maintained.

Some of L.A.’s most venerated and visible art organizations have long been
major matchmakers between the arts and fashion. The Los Angeles County Museum
11
of Art (LACMA), already home to a strong British and American costume and
textile collection, made headlines for acquiring an over-500-strong-piece collection
of 18
th
and 19
th
century European clothing and accessories in late 2008. Come this
fall it will hold “Fashioning Fashion: European Dress in Detail, 1700-1915”, an
exhibition that tracks the development of clothing and their cultural impact through
that period.
The focus might not be on L.A.-made fashion but the curators’ intent echoes
the collaborative, cooperative spirit of the fashion community here. Sharon Takeda,
department head of costume and textiles at LACMA, told the Los Angeles Times’
arts blog Culture Monster that museum chief executive office Michael Govan had
seen right away that the acquisition of the European clothing would “[help] to bring
the museum’s collection alive” by providing “a window into paintings” and other
artworks (Muchnic, 2009).
Over the years the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) downtown has
been bolder in the playing of cheeky cupid between art and fashion.
Part of the city’s premier contemporary art institution’s mission is to shift
perceptions of what art constitutes, in part, by collaborating with those outside the
industry. This has included several major players in fashion ranging from French
luxury label Louis Vuitton in 2007 to Italian designer Miuccia Prada just last year.
After all, as Teunissen points out, the melding of art and fashion became
most pronounced when contemporary art movements like pop art and performance
art first emerged in the 1960s and obscured the boundaries between high and low
12
culture (Teunissen, 2009). To date MOCA has done a commendable, if sometimes
controversial job of promoting such counter-culture art. Its 1992 exhibition Helter
Skelter, which displayed works of art depicting deranged Americana ranging from
Llyn Foulkes’ part-painting, part sculpture of Superman to Charles Ray’s eight-feet-
tall mannequin of a woman dressed in a hot pink business suit, was groundbreaking
in this aspect.
The museum’s fashion-related projects are more lighthearted in nature but
have made no less of an impact.
In 2006 “Skin + Bones” explored the parallels between architecture and
fashion – a world’s first for a major museum (Museum of Contemporary Art, 2006).
On show were pieces by the likes of the Cyprus-born Hussein Chalayan, Belgian
Martin Margiela and Rei Kawakubo of Japanese label Comme des Garcons, fashion
vanguards whose experimentations with fabrics, cuts and construction techniques
push the boundaries of style. Exhibits included Chalayan’s famous Afterwords
collection consisting of living room furniture that can be transformed into skirts and
suitcases and Margiela’s deconstructed dress made from patches of different fabrics.
A year later, as part of a retrospective on Japanese artist Takashi Murakami,
the museum transformed a 1000 sq ft space at its Geffen Contemporary building in
Little Tokyo into a temporary Louis Vuitton boutique. In store: coveted limited
edition bags and accessories bearing Murakami’s iconic animation-inspired.
With such trendy projects under its belt, MOCA in 2009 revealed what could
easily be its most daring tryst with the fashion world. Its 30
th
anniversary
13
celebrations that November boasted a performance by Lady Gaga dressed in a Frank
Gehry-designed hat that resembled a crumpled heap of silver foil and a Prada couture
gown with a huge crystal cage for a skirt. Her back-up dancers from the Bolshoi
Ballet were also clad in pretty Prada. The guest list meanwhile included a who’s who
in contemporary fashion including Miuccia Prada, Hedi Slimane, influential
menswear designer-turned-photographer, and Dasha Zhukova, editor of edgy British
fashion magazine Pop and honorary event co-chair.
The Los Angeles Times’ Booth Moore wrote in her post-event coverage: “The
Museum of Contemporary Art’s 30
th
anniversary festivities were a reminder of how
cozy the art and fashion worlds have become” (Los Angeles Times, November 22,
2009).
Some industry insiders have considered MOCA’s stylish festivities
superficial and Moore’s comments could be read as catty criticism as much as it
could be praise. In a post on the New York Times’ culture blog T Magazine
discussing a humorous clip satirizing the museum’s controversial appointment of
pop art-loving New York art dealer Jeffrey Deitch as its new director, Linda
Yablonsky quipped:
[The video] also exposes lingering resentments over [Eli] Broad’s grip on
L.A.’s cultural life (he was formerly on the boards of both the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art and the Hammer Museum) and Angelenos’ fear that
the carpetbagging Deitch’s penchant for pop culture and outlandish street
parades would turn precious MOCA into a three-ring circus. As if
Hollywood’s infatuation with fame didn’t already do that. (Witness MOCA’s
lavish 30th anniversary gala in November, when Lady Gaga – not any local
artist — was the star attraction.) (T Magazine, February 15, 2010)
14
Could MOCA’s escapades promoting the convergence of fashion with art
have turned it into a fashion victim obsessed with fads and looking in vogue?
Perhaps. But as incestuous as its new relationship with the fashion industry may be,
the museum’s influence on the merger between art and fashion in L.A. is undeniable.
Even the anti-establishment Grunz of BOXeight says – somewhat
begrudgingly – that MOCA’s 30
th
anniversary has been helpful in raising L.A.’s
profile on the world’s fashion stage (Grunz, 2009). And more assistance could be
coming up.
Already the fashion savvy Deitch (Harpers Bazaar reported that he wears
only bespoke, or customized, suits) (Colman, 2000) seems to have his trademark
round rimmed glasses focused on Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the Pasadena-based
sisters behind celebrated American label Rodarte. At the girls’ show at New York
Fashion Week in February, he told news and opinion website, the Daily Beast:
They have a unique ability to fuse the artistic and the commercial, and it's
really exciting. I've been following what they do, and I hope to involve them
in our programs… Museum exhibitions, staging fashion shows at the
museum, there are a lot of ways (Wilkinson, 2010).
15
Chapter Four: Artistic Identity
Getting cozy with the art community has become key to the L.A. designers
keen to dismiss the stereotype of L.A. fashion as casual and nowhere cutting-edge.
Mention Los Angeles fashion and the first names that usually come to the
public’s mind are brands such as basic wear company American Apparel, terry cloth
tracksuit connoisseur Juicy Couture and tattoo-inspired denim brands Ed Hardy and
Christian Audigier. These labels owe much of their popularity to Hollywood hotties
such as Paris Hilton who are often photographed in their clothes but sometimes
better known for not wearing any at all. Being associated with them is something
most of the edgier, more avant-garde designers could live without.
Referring to the designs she has in-store, E.P.I.C co-owner Jones says: “A lot
of the stuff here does not get the credit it deserves. If fashion [in L.A.] is underrated,
it’s because it’s not presented in the right way or just not presented at all.”
Together with business partner Tristan Scott, Jones has fashioned a solution:
Incorporating a gallery space into the boutique in which local artists as well as the
designers whose wares are carried can exhibit their artistic talents and express
themselves.
The E.P.I.C duo joins a growing number of local retailers, that key
middleman that bridges designers with consumers and the media, who hope to
promote L.A.’s more innovative, less informal fashion scene by playing up the art
association.
16
Says Jones:
We had the space and wanted to make sure what we do is good and helps the
creative community, give them the exposure they deserve. Anybody can open
a store selling $10 t-shirts from China that rip off Marc Jacobs. What we
really want to do is marry the concept of fashion and art and show what
artists – and this includes designers – [here] are really about.

Bigger players on the scene include Tenoversix, a cult Beverly Boulevard
accessories store where shoes and handbags are presented like paintings and
sculptures in a gallery-like room and Space 15 Twenty, the over-12000 sq ft mixed-
retail venture in Hollywood. The latter is a first-of-its-kind concept by popular
hipster fashion chain Urban Outfitters that incorporates a Hennessy + Ingalls
architecture bookstore, an art gallery and film and music venue on its premises.
Local designers’ bid to establish their identity has led to other endeavors
more artistic than they are a la mode.
A few blocks away from E.P.I.C, Austin native Kristin Dickson, 33, who
uprooted to L.A. in 2002, has found herself adding the role of curator to her portfolio
within the past year.
Last April, Dickson, who is behind the label Rowena Sartin – known for its
offbeat yet wearable takes on classic silhouettes – opened Iko Iko, a 500sq ft space in
Angelino Heights. She calls the place, which is at once her boutique, studio and curio
gallery, “a concept space focusing on high design craft and handmade pieces."
Step inside to find Rowena Sartin apparel next to displays of anything from
unusual accessories (necklaces woven out of human hair, anyone?) to vintage
fashion books to jars of organic, homemade preserves to candy-colored broom heads
17
from Japan. Not unlike in a mini museum, Dickson introduces new items about every
six weeks according to a theme, mining the quirky collectibles from artist friends and
acquaintances – 80 percent of whom, she says, are based in L.A.
Rather than being part of the boutique-slash-gallery crew of fashion avengers,
Dickson says intermingling art with fashion at Iko Iko is not so much about upping
her stakes in the market as it is about her personal creative pursuits. It is a vision that
began with the opening of Iko Iko and shaped by her observations of the retail scene
during the recent recession. The troubled economy, she says, has forced consumers
to be more aware of their buying habits and in turn affected the design process at
clothing labels.
She explains:
If you want to build and grow your line, it really requires for designing to
become your full-time job and in this troubled economy that could end up
being less about actual design work and more about production issues, brand
building and marketing. The numbers are important in the equation of
company growth so the amount of doors you sell to or the order size for the
handful of stores you sell to is crucial. I’m saying this in response to what my
goals are as a creative person. I started off wanting to just design but having
this space has allowed me to see what other types of things I can create or
what other objects I can curate and that give me meaning.

Michel Berandi, known for his dramatic gothic-inspired garbs, meanwhile
explored exhibiting his work at the Geffen Contemporary last October as part of
Downtown Los Angeles Fashion Week, a separate initiative from BOXeight’s.
Dubbed “etLUXOR”, Berandi’s installation presented a wooden mannequin
standing so erect on its tippy toes that it appeared to be floating. Meant to mix the
natural with the futuristic, the figure was dressed in an imposing leather trench coat,
18
shoes with animal horns for heels, fishnet tights made from human hair and a
motorcycle helmet created in collaboration with BMW.
The results of the collaboration, however, left the French-born Berandi, who
moved to L.A. in 1982, less than satisfied. He explained in an email interview that
the installation was placed between “an electric pink booth in the shape of a stripper
shoe and a recycling can. You just want to scream you know…at so much lack of
passion.”
Barbara Graff, senior executive and president at MLB Group that organizes
Downtown Los Angeles Fashion Week, says her company had originally invited
Berandi to show a full collection at the event because of its respect for his artistic
talent.
She says:
Due to a lack of sponsorship funding he created one signature piece instead
of a collection, which was displayed in the most advantages space given the
nature of the art and the space. He received a large amount of press coverage
which you can find if you Google him and Downtown LA Fashion Week.

For what it is worth, there is no doubt that Berandi sees little distinction
between art and fashion.
He says: “The search for beauty and perfection can only be met through art. I
personally believe that people are more drawn to something that is emotionally and
intellectually intense.”
With such creative talents, L.A. fashion moves one step closer to being
perceived as more than velour tracksuit fluff.
19
Bibliography
Berandi, Michel. All references from interviews with author via email from Los
Angeles, California, February 7, 2010.

Colman, David. “The Wonderful Wizard of Art.” Harper’s Bazaar, September,
2000.

Dickson, Kristin. All references from interviews with author at the subject’s boutique
in Angelino Heights, Los Angeles, California, January 26, 2010.

Egan, Jennifer. All references from interviews with author via telephone from Los
Angeles, California, February 15, 2010.

Grunz, Peter. All references from interviews with author at the subject’s studio in
Downtown Los Angeles, California, January 31, 2010.

Jones, Rhiannon. All references from interviews with author at the subject’s boutique
in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California, March 17, 2010.

Mackrell, Alice. Art and Fashion: The Impact of Art on Fashion and Fashion on Art.
London: Batsford, 2005.

Momin, Shamim. All references from interviews with author at the subject’s office
in Culver City, California, Feb 10, 2010.

Moore, Booth. “MOCA’s fashionable 30
th
-anniversary gala.” Los Angeles Times,
November 22, 2009. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/22/image/la-ig-
moca22-2009nov22 (accessed Feb 1, 2010).

Muchnic, Suzanne. “LACMA fashions a new reputation.” Culture Monster, January
2, 2009. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/01/lacma-
fashions.html

Museum of Contemporary Art. “MOCA presents the first major museum exhibition
to explore common threads of fashion and architecture,” text distributed by
Museum of Contemporary Art press office, Los Angeles, California,
November 3, 2006.

Sage, Alexandria. “Los Angeles has serious designs on fashion.” Reuters, April 3,
2008.
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs056/1101870870988/archive/110204455
1202.html
20
Teunissen, Jose. “The Universe of Fashion,” In The Art of Fashion: Installing
Allusions, edited by Jan Brand and Jose Teunissen, 6. Rotterdam: Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2009.

Wilkinson, Isabel. “Fashion Week Day 6.” The Daily Beast, February 16, 2010.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-16/fashion-week-
day-6/2/

Yablonsky, Linda. “Hitler vs. Eli Broad: A Comedy.” T Magazine, February 15,
2010. http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/best-in-show-hitler-
vs-eli-broad-a-comedy/

Zelevansky, Nora. “N.Y. designers look to L.A.” Los Angeles Times, November 22,
2009. http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/22/image/la-ig-nydesign22-
2009nov22

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Los Angeles is often better known for producing fashion that is more casual and commercial friendly than cool and cutting edge. Defying this stereotype however is a group of designers whose work and working methods are more similar with the artists who have come to make L.A. a world-renowned cultural capital. These style innovators, along with several organizations in the form of event production companies, art institutions and retailers, have come to challenge the common perception of what L.A. fashion is about by playing up the art association. Through interviews and historical research, this paper examines the way these individuals and organizations work, their motives behind what they do and how they collectively attempt to show a side to L.A. fashion that is often ignored on the international fashion scene.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Loh, Noelle (author)

Core Title Refocusing fashion: Los Angeles' climb up the style stakes through art

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Print Journalism)

Publication Date 04/19/2010

Defense Date 03/29/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag art,artist,BOXeight,Fashion,Fashion week,Gen-Art,Los Angeles,Museum of Contemporary Art,OAI-PMH Harvest

Place Name California (states), Los Angeles (city or populated place)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Anawalt, Sasha (committee chair), Berney, Rachel (committee member), Page, Tim (committee member)

Creator Email noelleloh.an@gmail.com,noellelza@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2940

Unique identifier UC1107911

Identifier etd-Loh-3621 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-307944 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2940 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Loh-3621.pdf

Dmrecord 307944

Document Type Thesis

Rights Loh, Noelle

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu