"I think it was really exciting to do something here on the rooftop of an amazing museum in the middle of LA with this incredible skyline... In the heart of where I live and where my studio is and everything about what we've done is made in LA." - Greg Lauren
Day three of LAFW at the Petersen Automotive museum served up several more amazing fashion designers and closed out with the LA based headliner Greg Lauren. The industry veteran who grew up learning about fashion from his famous uncle Ralph Lauren celebrated his 10 year anniversary at LAFW this year with a special collection titled, "Ten".
Day three was all about contemporary styles and featured collections from: Bishme Cromartie, Naids, and Laura Theiss leading up to the finale. The evening kicked off with a colorful collection by Bishme Cromartie couture featuring one of this season's hottest trending colors: lime green. The designs were full of fit to perfection creations with statement ruffles on the sleeves and hips.
The show was followed by hand crafted NAIDS collection featuring beautiful prints and matching men's and women's suiting.
Laura Theiss presented a collection featuring another of Spring 22s trending colors: bright pink. The collection featured flouncy dresses and intricate cutout styles in beautiful crocheted materials.
Finally, the show everyone was waiting for, Greg Lauren opened with a star studded front row including celebs Usher, Chance the Rapper, Hannah Brown, Adam Weiss, and more!
This unique show took the audience through the artist's evolution as a designer showing looks from various collections Greg Lauren has created over the years starting with 2008 and going all the way through to 2021. The show started off with looks 1-4 from the 2008 collection titled "The Artist" and were presented during an amazing dance performance titled "Scraps" choreographed by Jacob Jonas The Company.
The show used dance, music, and fashion to make a statement about social justice with a focus on the social revolution that has taken place over the past decade. Many of the clothes were reminiscent of the 60's and 70's as a nod to the social justice movements happening today and how they are a continuation of events from years past according to the designer.
Looks 5-6 were from 2011-2014 and pulled from the archive from the collection titled "Deconstruction". Greg Lauren explained that these looks were created from repurposed military duffle bags and other recycled items. The designer spoke about the importance of sustainability in fashion and stated that while he did not set out to be a "sustainable designer" when creating those pieces it was something that just naturally happened as the focus on reuse and the environment became more important. Lauren explained that he believes sustainability should be an important focus for all creators going forward and not just relegated as a special category.
Looks 9-16 were from the collection titled "50/50" from 2014-2018. Looks 17-20 were from the 2019 and 2020 collections titled "Scrapwork and Stitchwork" and featured long trench coats and knitwear accessories. Looks 21-30 from the 2021 collection Dress Codes featured relaxed suiting and denim.
And finally "Mosaic" closed out the show with looks 31-37 from the 2021-2022 collection Greg Lauren created with Gee's Bend. Throughout the show there were several nods to the designer's home base of LA including a Malibu sunset backdrop as well as the LA based dance company and relaxed California lifestyle looks. Lauren gave insight into the beauty looks used for the show saying that he wanted each model's unique beauty to be highlighted so there were no two beauty looks the same in this show. Some models wore no makeup at all. The designs were also all androgynous creations which Lauren explained was another important statement he wanted to make with this collection. He explained that he planned for each look in this collection to be able to be worn by any gender.
I spoke to Greg Lauren about the story he wanted to tell with "Ten" as well as his favorite things about designing in LA in an exclusive behind the scenes interview after the show. When asked about the color evolution of this show the designer told me, "The story in this collection was it was really in honor of ten years and so it started with the idea of the artist and moved through our stuff that we did with the deconstructed army materials. Then it moves through 50/50 which combines multiple elements and then what I was most excited about were the last two storylines. All of these groups that were about a new elegance and the sun rising pinks and browns and beautiful colors. Then those vivid colors that were all part of this final group. So there was an evolution from those kind of muted tones to like bursts of color."
We also talked about his decision to present at LA fashion week and he said, "You know LAFW is interesting because it doesn't necessarily get he same type of attention that New York or Paris does but I built my company in LA and everything is made in LA and that's something that's really important to me that I wanted to say thank you for and almost rewrite the narrative of LA fashion week because there is an unbelievable group of talent here that LA fashion week is putting out there and it all comes from LA. So I think it was really exciting to do something here on the rooftop of an amazing museum in the middle of LA with this incredible skyline. And again in the heart of where I live and where my studio is and everything about what we've done is made in LA."
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