Fashion Week may not have officially started until Sunday, but leave it to the tastemakers at Gen Art to fashion-forward two days before anyone else in L.A. The fifth anniversary of "The New Garde" was full of surprises, some delightful and some…well…let’s just say it involved sneaking a peek at the undergarments of a notorious transsexual through a sheer, body-gripping dress.

The collections curated by Gen Art were, per usual, avant-garde yet wearable. The ever-elusive Jennifer Mary showed her most recent JMARY collection via a "Dreamgirls"-esque mirrored revolving platform on which models stood frozen in time, like ballerinas in a music box. Designer Jesse Kamm showed her newest and finest safari-inspired daywear in an atmosphere that looked like a high-class Serengeti lounge. Le Sang Des Betes by Trang Chau was, however, at the center of both the event and our excitement. We struck up a conversation with a cute guy in a sharp blazer who turned out to be Trang’s boyfriend. We gushed about the impeccably tailored skintight black pants, the gray vest/poncho hybrid and the black pumps that descended into clear Lucite at the heel. We carefully omitted our only issue with the collection: the cheap-looking white tube tops many of the models wore under their finer garments that consistently fell, exposing their nipples to a transfixed crowd of unshaven media guys.
      
Props to show sponsor Botox for creative advertising—making their models stand under umbrellas in clear shower stalls with water pouring down on them. Injecting Botox in your underarms is supposed to decrease the amount of sweat expelled through them (though we’ve heard from users that while it does prevent pit stains, it makes you sweat more through your feet). After a cocktail or two, we headed to the outdoor patio, where we found none other than America’s favorite transsexual (don’t tell Amanda Lepore!), Hollywood royalty Alexis Arquette. Asking us to resist saying hello would have been like asking us to sit down and not drunkenly sing along to the music at a Spice Girls concert. We introduced ourselves, and she cordially introducing us to her companion for the evening—Odyssey magazine editor Candyass. Our new friend then proceeded to bend over, showing us her zebra print underwear through her mesh dress after seeing our zebra print undershirt and getting excited over spontaneous coordination. All in a Metromix day’s work.

Marcos Luevanos is Style editor for Metromix Los Angeles.