LA Fashion Week — October 2004

Mercedes-Benz Los Angeles Fashion Week ran at Smashbox Studios in Culver City from Sunday, 24 October to Friday, 29 October 2004, and the West Coast editorial team reviewed the week's designer shows day by day. Fourteen reviews make up the October 2004 set, each linked above in the order the shows took place: Paul Magdalad's San Paredes opened the week with an unlisted program of its own in Chinatown on Sunday, and Louis Verdad closed it with the grand finale on Friday.

The twelve reviews in this set cover Monday's Kevan Hall glamour and Lady Enyce streetwear, Tuesday's Petro Zillia color, Kate O'Connor knits and the Iron presentation, Wednesday's Coco Kliks, and Thursday's Frankie B. denim, Shay Todd swimwear, the GenArt group show and Jennie Kayne — plus the San Paredes opener and the Verdad finale. The week's remaining two reviews, Arthur Mendonca and Anand Jon, are linked above with them and sit alongside this set in the archive.

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

The Week Day by Day

Sunday belonged to the renegade: Paul Magdalad kicked off Fashion Week as in seasons past with an unlisted program of his own, an impromptu runway in a Chinatown restaurant parking lot with washlines hanging overhead. Monday brought the week's glamour pole — Kevan Hall's classic black-tie collection in a tropical palette, sponsored by eBay in a Fashion Week first — alongside Lady Enyce's citrus-bright, jet-set streetwear. Tuesday was the week's most various day: Petro Zillia's retro-optimism and candy cane stripes, Kate O'Connor's sheer tropical knits, and Iron's minimalist jersey looks, which drew the set's sharpest review.

Wednesday's single review, Coco Kliks, found French chic meeting a suburban tailgate party in ladylike bell skirts and upholstery prints. Thursday was the week's fullest day — Frankie B.'s fashion-rock denim show, Shay Todd's endless-summer swimwear, the GenArt group show's twelve-look presentations of emerging talent, and Jennie Kayne's Gatsby-inspired production with A-list front rows. Friday closed with Louis Verdad, voted king of the week by popular acclaim, presenting a 1930s seaside-inspired finale of sailor dresses and high-waist pants.

The Reviewers

The October 2004 reviews were written by Debra Stevenson of the Design Studio, with photographs by Carlos Alberto — the same team whose daily reports cover the 2003 and March 2005 Los Angeles seasons in this archive. Their reviews record the collections garment by garment, the front rows, the sponsors and the room itself, and each is kept complete below as the record of its show, with its runway photograph.

Reading the Season

Read together, the fourteen reviews are a portrait of Los Angeles fashion at its most confident: premium denim and swimwear as hometown signatures, knitwear and retro tailoring as house specialties, and a group-show system — GenArt above all — that kept feeding new names onto the calendar. Several of the week's designers appear elsewhere in this archive in other seasons, and the reviews cross-reference those appearances where they matter: Verdad's GenArt debut two seasons earlier is recalled in his finale review, and Jennie Kayne's rise is measured from her own GenArt debut.