LA Fashion Week — April 2003

As the fashion community in Los Angeles eagerly awaited Fall Fashion Week in the spring of 2003, the news grabbed headlines nationwide: sponsor Mercedes-Benz and the organizers from 7th on Fifth had brought to the West Coast the expertise that had legitimized New York's Bryant Park for years. Now it was LA's turn, and a buzz of activity surrounded The Standard hotel in the heart of downtown, where the white tents awaited the week's runway shows.

What follows is a daily report of the fashion events that occurred citywide — the best of the West, covered show by show. Seven designer reports make up the April 2003 set, each written by Debra Stevenson of The Skyline Studios, the West Coast Bureau for Apparel Search, and each linked above: San Paredes by Paul Magalad opened the week on Sunday, March 30, 2003, and Naqada by Octavio Carlin, Peter Cohen, John Sakalis, Heatherette, GenArt and Eduardo Lucero followed through the week.

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

A Benchmark Season for Los Angeles

The April 2003 week mattered because of what it proved: that Los Angeles could stage a fall fashion week with a national sponsor, a recognized organizing team and a press corps willing to fly in for it. The front rows tell the story — a serious New York crowd at Peter Cohen, with all the major editors present; celebrity supporters at John Sakalis; paparazzi mobs at Eduardo Lucero. A city long treated as a manufacturing town was presenting itself as a design capital, and the designers on the calendar were chosen to make exactly that argument.

The week also refused to be contained by its tents. Shows happened wherever Los Angeles fashion actually lives: in a suite at The Standard, where Naqada showed nineteen dresses to a live bongo trio; in the brand-new Colburn School of Music auditorium, where John Sakalis sent out twenty-six looks; at the Shriner Auditorium for GenArt's emerging-designer showcase; and in a lantern-lit Chinatown courtyard, where Paul Magalad personally welcomed the press and narrated his own show from the DJ microphone.

The Designers Covered

The seven reports span the range of the Los Angeles market. Eveningwear leads: Eduardo Lucero's glittering made-to-measure couture and John Sakalis's tartan glamour. Minimalism answers it in Peter Cohen's earthy neutrals for women and men. San Paredes and Naqada bring the city's romantic, hand-worked side — chiffon, ruffles, deconstructed cheongsams from one; Baroque-print silk and tropical styling from the other. Heatherette supplies the week's pop spectacle, forty Hollywood icon-inspired ensembles deep. And GenArt, the member-driven emerging-designer organization, supplies its future: sharply tailored suiting from a young Louis Verdad and a Gothic storm from Jared Gold.

Each report is kept as it was written — the fabrics, the front rows, the after-parties — because together they are the fullest written record of the week that started Los Angeles fashion week's modern era. The reports begin above, in the order the week unfolded.

Reading the Week

Two seasons a year became the rhythm after April 2003: the fall collections shown in spring, the spring collections in fall, with the official week moving to Smashbox Studios from March 2004. Readers tracing a single designer will find several of these names again in later seasons — Louis Verdad in March 2004 and October 2007, San Paredes as the Apparel Search co-sponsored show of March 2005 — and the LA Runway Shows hub, linked below, lists every season in the section.