California Fashion Designers: Art and Style
By Douglas Bullis
Gibbs M. Smith, 150 pages, 1987
Quick — name five California-based designers who were active in the 1980s.
It’s no so easy. When I played this game I could only name two: Jessica McClintock of Gunne Sax and Susie Tompkins of Esprit. And the only reason I knew of them was from spending time in San Francisco.
American West Coast fashion has long gotten a bad rap. It’s too commercial, it’s too junior, too colourful. These are just a few of the complaints I remember hearing about California fashion when I worked in the garment industry and would talk to New Yorkers who were firmly planted in their high-fashion ways.
It was for all the reasons jaded East Coasters would grumble about that I liked California fashion. Yes, it was commercial, yes, it was junior (but so was I), and all that colour made it fun and fresh.
But as far as counting off designers by name, this was a much more difficult task. In the ’80s there were lots of independent designers toiling away in Los Angeles, San Francisco and parts in between. Most may not have had a national profile or a household brand name, but their work was memorable and worth revisiting.
California Fashion Designers: Art and Style was published in 1987, so area designers who came up in the last years of the decade aren’t featured. It is a treat, however, to read about the 35 designers and design teams who are.
It’s a simple setup: each brand has four-to-six pages. The designer tells the story of/inspiration for their look in the first-person, and there are lots of colour photographs illustrating their work. Naturally, it’s the pictures that draw you in, but the stories of creative process is always sure to keep me engaged in a book.
From bigger brands that I didn’t previously know were California-based like Karen Alexander, Adolph Schuman for Lilli Ann and Jeanne Allen and Marc Grant of Jeanne-Marc to others that inexplicably slipped my mind like Georges Marciano of Guess, it’s entertaining to read where designers find their motivation.
Discovering new-to-me names like Janet Lipkin, Marika Contompasis and accessories designer Liza Bowen is at once delightful and disappointing. I love their style, but their work was produced on a fairly small scale and will be tough to hunt down. But I’m up to the challenge — especially if there is a pair of quirky Liza Bowen shoes waiting for me at the end.
