Jared Gold has never been one to follow the crowd. Gathering a crowd is more his style. Having shown a number
of collections during L.A. Fashion Week before the Smashbox/IMG conquest of 2002, Gold now refuses to runway
by their rules—and why should he? He’s already a well-known designer, he has a
staff of over 50, and he operates a successful label, Black
Chandelier, available online and at various high-end retailers such as Barneys.
Gold has been showing his cloth creations since the late ’90s, after a brief stint as a fashion major at Otis College
of Art and Design. Fashion Week looked very different
back then. “Everybody talks about the salad days of L.A. Fashion Week,” Gold says. “We were all really into
supporting each other. There was just this incredible sense of community.
Designers would go to each other’s shows and help out. Now it just seems like
all the art is gone; it’s just been bled out by the razor blade of
commercialism. When things get really big and really profitable, people get
more and more afraid of taking risks.”
In response, Gold is putting on his own show with the help
of muse and close friend Clint Catalyst. The show, which will take place in Downtown L.A.'s Union Station, will be unlike anything at Smashbox. “I’ve always thought it was really sad how you spend months
building a collection, and by the time it actually hits retail, all of the
excitement about it is over,” Gold says. By independently executing the show—which is free of charge and open to the public—he is appealing
directly to consumers. He's also allowing them to purchase items featured
on his runway, from makeshift pop-up stores, during the show.
“This
is the first time anyone has ever done this,” Gold says. “The people who really mean
something to me are my customers. I’m not going to pander to unbelievably
pampered and incredibly jaded people anymore, so I’m dealing them out
altogether.”
Gold is known for his unique aesthetic, a style he says
consists of “two disparate elements married together, which creates this
new synergistic life.” His designs may be darker than Heatherette, but they’re
just as much fun. In keeping with his creative philosophy, the show’s theme
seems to be the collision of fashion and viral communication. “A lot of the
models in the show are megahits on sites like YouTube, MySpace or Buzznet, and
so their participation is helping us market the event,” he says. “This is the first time
that a runway show will be seated completely via viral marketing.” With walking
hangers Chris Crocker (of “Leave Britney Alone” fame), Audrey Kitching (a MySpace
scene queen) and Lisa D’Amato (an “America’s
Next Top Model” runner-up turned rapper), and a live performance by rock band
Miss Derringer, Gold can expect a packed house.
If the event sounds like something of a
circus, it is. The show—titled “Czarina”—is scheduled to tour the U.S.
in the fall. “It’s about reconnecting with the public and bringing them in, getting people
excited about fashion and inspiring them to do it themselves,” Gold says. Although it
seems he’s doing something very new, in a way, he's harking back to a
simpler time—when he wouldn't have to pay somewhere in
the neighborhood of $30,000 to show at L.A.’s official Fashion Week.
Gold has a different take on the meaning
of the whole thing: “People that are interested in fashion, they just want to
see a show. They want this experience, this kind of wonderment, this great
thing that fashion is. This show is it. It’s going to be a big, fun party.”
Jared Gold's "Czarina" show will be held Friday, March 14, at Union Station.
Marcos Luevanos is Style editor for Metromix Los Angeles.
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