Can LA Fashion Week Keep the Momentum Going?

Fashion, Style — By Valeria Goncharova-Barrett on March 25, 2014 at 4:37 am

Cover and Inside Photo-Fashion Icon Betsey Johnson (L) takes time to chat with Fashion designer Valeria Goncharova Barrett, a talented fashion journalist, who is a Contributor to The Scoop LA. Visit her website at http://www.valeria-rovalution.com.

By Valeria Goncharova Barrett

New York, Paris, London and Milan, for several decades, have been consumed by fashion fever several times a year. According to The Global Language Monitor (GLM), a media-analytics company based in Austin, Texas, the top ten global fashion capitals of 2014 are New York, Paris, London, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Rome, Berlin, Sydney, Antwerp, Shanghai with surprisingly Tokyo and Milano falling behind. In the past couple of years, Los Angeles moved from the ninth place in 2012 to the fourth this year. If this trend will continue, the City of Angeles can reach the top-spot of becoming the fashion capital of the world in a couple years! As a relatively young fashion city, Los Angeles has everything to succeed. The matter of fact, it has more to offer than any other fashion city in the world. Los Angeles is the top entertainment capital of the world. And as we know historically, fashion can’t live without the entertainment and vice versa.

There is another important fact that can put Los Angeles on the top of the list. It is the unique lifestyle of the city’s residents. Los Angeles is one of a kind and it will never be like New York, Paris or London in their traditional fashion way, and that’s the best asset of this city. Los Angeles has a potential to create its own new and unique globally-recognized fashion niche. The global fashion industry is transforming, everybody is turning to the holistic approach to fashion. Considering that powerful reappearance of the global healthy lifestyle trend that is swiping the world right now, Los Angeles has the best positioning from every angle. Los Angeles is a well-known veteran in healthy living, which makes it a top candidate in becoming a global leader of the new holistic fashion and lifestyle movement.

However, there are some changes that have to be done in the Los Angeles fashion world on the way to the top, including the current LA Fashion Week. In order to lead the way, LA Fashion Week has to focus more on the quality of the content versa the quantity. The venues and their production teams need to make money, however, priority to professional designers are a must if you want to be taken seriously on the international level.

Betsey Johnson's fashions have that "wow" factor. Photo by Valeria Goncharova Barrett.

The traditional Betsey Johnson-style bouncy rainbow palette, with no-boundaries combination, is always a hit on the runway. Photo by Valeria Goncharova Barrett.

This year, among various LA fashion week events, Veronica Welch with her Style Fashion Week shows has been most recognized. This spring, Style Fashion Week welcomed a well-known and respected designer, Betsey Johnson, who was undoubtedly the top-cream of LA Fashion Week. Betsey is quiet a catch! At 71, she looks and acts like she is ageless. For almost five decades, Betsey, a well-recognized fashion veteran in the industry worldwide, once again reclaimed her “Queen of the Whimsical” title this Spring during her New York Fashion Week show, in addition to her LA Fashion Week runway show.

“I am still young and “over the top,”said Betsey, when I asked her how she is doing. That statement beams through her entire collection – every piece has a Wow-factor! The presence of the traditional Betsey-style bouncy rainbow-palette with no-boundaries combination of contrasting textures is right into your face! Surely, Betsey still knows how to celebrate the youth and the zest for life!

Prior to the fashion show, Betsey Johnson (inset) instructs one of her models. Photo by Valeria Goncharova Barrett.

A talented Filipino designer, Furne One, who owns a haute couture label Amato in Dubai, was another great highlight of LA Fashion Week this spring. His modern take on the Japanese traditional costumes just carry you to the whole different and magical dimension.

Now, to keep up the momentum going, the producers of Los Angeles Fashion Week have to create even more unique “new-fashion-concoction” by attracting only professional designers with the focus on the healthy-fashion and top it with the A-list entertainment celebrities twice to the rise for the next few years. Now that I gave away a secret recipe for a future success, the question is can it be done? As a fearless optimist with over 20 years of fashion and costume expertise, I say yes, I see the glorious light is coming to Los Angeles rapidly.