CoLA Fashion Week, whose inception was only announced a few weeks ago, has put on several fashion industry only events at this year’s Los Angeles Fashion Week. CoLA, which stands for “City of Los Angeles”, is not affiliated with, or sponsored by, the city of Los Angeles. As such, the organization has decided to keep with their abbreviated name (noting the lowercase “o”) to avoid confusion.
In a 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 three 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 media and fashion buyers, though some guests had a hard time finding exactly where the entrance to the CoLA shows was to be found.
LA Times blogger Melissa Magsaysay noted that while Brittany Pham’s 1940s-inspired womenswear collection was, itself, uninspiring, her menswear collection was “really strong and, most impressively, actually wearable, something we haven’t seen too much of from L.A. designers who churn out toothpick pants and leather man skirts. The slim gray wool trousers, high-neck wool sweaters and black jackets with subtle biker detail would fit into any guy’s wardrobe.”
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 media and the fashion industry. Does the designer not care enough 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: she’s Danish, whereas Ms. Magsaysay mentions that members of the CoLA staff were referring to her collection as being Swedish.
Despite some of the poor planning and confusion that plagued CoLA’s first year, Ms. Magsaysay notes positively that “the runway, lighting track and seating were done really well and made for a pleasant fashion show watching experience.” That level of focus and seriousness bodes well for the future of CoLA as it looks to establish itself as a staple part of London Fashion Week. Let’s hope they can iron out any other kinks in the coming seasons.
CoLA’s website can be found here, though it’s currently just the homepage with a list of sponsors.
