Update: January 4, 2017

Designers continue to defect from New York Fashion Week. Rachel Comey announced that she, too, would be holding her customary fashion dinner-cum-presentation in Los Angeles this February. The site? Downtown gallery Hauser Wirth & Schimmel. The caterer? On-site restaurant Manuela. The date? February 7.

On a related but non-New York Fashion Week-related note, on December 21, Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri revealed her plans to stage her first cruise collection in the City of Angels. The sure-to-be star-studded show will take place on May 11, location TBD.

We’re becoming a little concerned. Is New York over? Did no one tell us?

December 13, 2016

New York Fashion Week’s February installment can feel a bit slapstick. Appearance-conscious fashion fanatics brave the weather in heels and getups most would never think to pit against concrete and cold. Inevitably, stylish show-goers slip, slide, sometimes fall. It’s totally unsurprising that, given the unglamorous conditions, designers are choosing to migrate to warmer climes. After all, New Yorkers are doing the same.

Thus far, Rebecca Minkoff, Tommy Hilfiger, Rachel Zoe and Tom Ford have announced their plans to show in Los Angeles come February. It’s no coincidence that Minkoff, Hilfiger and Ford all showed see-now-buy-now collections last September — when you break with the fashion calendar on one front, why not go all the way?

Minkoff’s show will take place on February 4 at retail outlet-meets-lifestyle destination The Grove. Tommy, continuing his tradition of water-adjacent locales, will unveil his second Tommy x Gigi collection on February 8 in Venice Beach. Zoe will go the Rachel Comey route, showcasing her latest wares over dinner and cocktails on either February 1 or 2. Ford is keeping the details of his presentation close to the undone-to-the-navel vest, although rumor has it the festivities will align with the Oscars. (In February 2015, the Nocturnal Animals director held a fashion show at Milk Studios on the eve of the awards ceremony.)

Tom Ford walking the runway after his A/W15 womenswear show in Los Angeles. #TFLA A photo posted by TOM FORD (@tomford) on Feb 20, 2015 at 9:27pm PST

“Los Angeles is becoming a bigger city with huge potential. New York real estate developers are coming to Los Angeles, and so is fashion. It’s just the beginning of it. I have been in the fashion business for almost thirty years and it’s exciting to see designers and brands embrace the West Coast lifestyle,” Paola Russo, owner of chic Los Angeles boutique Just One Eye, said of fashion’s movement West.

Steven Kolb, chief executive officer of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, sees no harm in location differentiation: “From logistical purposes, it doesn’t impact what’s happening in New York during NYFW, which will again have a mixture of shows from see-now-buy-now to preview and hybrids, and also given the strong number of talented designers, we won’t be short on any talent that week. I think it’s a good thing. The whole idea is to explore different approaches to a fashion show, and falling outside of a defined week in a different city, it’s a great exploration.”

As Tom Ford pointed out in his recent GQ interview, Los Angeles does not yet boast the same fashion market and cultural currency as New York, for various reasons. (“‘Here is the city of Los Angeles’—he holds his hands up, one above the other, about two feet apart—‘and above them is an oil slick. The oil slick are the interesting, smart, intelligent people who are stylish, who you could have a conversation with, who’d want to be friends. Then’ —and here he indicates the rest of the space—‘you have morons.’”)

According to Business of Fashion, 2014 had “more than 89,000 people employed by Los Angeles county’s fashion industry.” However — especially after Heidi Slimane’s departure from Saint Laurent and, in turn, the City of Angels — high-status, full-time fashion jobs are few and far between. However, as top-tier brands increasingly relocate their shows to Los Angeles, perhaps their studios will follow suit, and even more of New York’s fashion folk can shed their carefully constructed layers without sacrificing their salaries. Now wouldn’t that (shiver) be nice?

[ via WWD ]