San Paredes Show Invitation — March 17, 2005

The invitation is the fourth document in the March 2005 San Paredes set. The Los Angeles Art Association / Gallery 825 and Apparel Search requested attendance at an installation of San Paredes avant-garde apparel by Paul Magalad during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week LA — Thursday, March 17, 2005, from 7:30pm at Gallery 825, 825 N. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles. A note at the head of the page records that the event was a success and points readers who missed the show to the post-event press release.

Fashion week invitations were working paper: they fixed the time, the address and the format in a guest's hand. This one specifies an installation show with guest DJ, open bar, valet parking and live models, and gives the landmark every Los Angeles guest needed that week — Gallery 825 stood three blocks from the Marc Jacobs store, whose opening shared the same night.

Illustrative image created for this guide — an artistic impression, not photographs from this show.

An Open Door to Future Designers

The invitation also carried a forward offer: Apparel Search would jury submissions for future seasons and continue sponsorship of fashion events, and designers who wished to be considered were invited to contact Debra Stevenson at The Skyline Studios. The San Paredes presentation was therefore both a show and a template — the sponsors' juried-debut format, in which local designers were selected to headline a fashion week event, was meant to repeat with new names in later seasons.

The Set of Documents

Kept together, the invitation and the three releases show the full paper trail of a small fashion week production: the announcement that a show would happen, the guest release that filled the room, the invitation that put the details in hand, and the post-event release that recorded the result — over 500 guests, national press in attendance, and buyers from Neiman Marcus and Fred Segal. The artwork carried with the invitation is shown in the Photos section.

Photos