SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco International Fashion Week that never came to be is a saga of big plans and disappointments.
The three days of shows and parties were abruptly canceled last Thursday when key sponsorships apparently fell through, people familiar with the event said. The decision left a dozen designers, including Afshin Feiz, who flew in from Paris, and Jacques van der Watt from Johannesburg, in the lurch and paying their own bills — contrary to what they were promised.
Jacinta Law, the organizer of fashion week, did not return phone calls seeking comment. This was her second unsuccessful effort to stage the event. In previous media interviews, she described San Francisco International Fashion Week as her largest production.
“It’s unheard of to fly in designers and pay for their whole trip and show participation,” said Dusty Derouen, a managing partner of Terra, an event space that was being used for model fittings. “Her fault was not relaying…that ‘I no longer have the sponsors so I can no longer keep the commitments.'”
Derouen said Law told him that sponsors never materialized for a budget she put at $200,000.
Last Friday, the frustrations resulted in a shouting match between some designers and Law’s camp at Terra. Police were called but no arrests were made. “All the designers were stressed and tense,” said San Francisco designer Joseph Domingo, who witnessed the dispute.
Seeking to calm matters, Derouen, who said Law had also hired him to provide VIP bars for the shows in the Herbst Pavilion of the Fort Mason arts complex, donated Terra for an ad hoc show Sunday night. Six designers participated, representing Peru, South Africa, India and the Bay Area, and a couple of dozen models donated their services.
Feiz said he’s out about $87,000 for hotel, travel and other costs. “I will seek to have my money refunded,” he said in an e-mail. “There were bad signs from early on,” Feiz said, describing unanswered phone calls and lack of information about arrangements from Law.
Among the designers who initially planned to participate was Frenchman Lloyd Klein. He wanted San Francisco as a showcase for local clients, said John Arguelles, president of Klein’s design house, with a presence in Paris and West Hollywood, Calif.
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Klein canceled on Oct. 13 after airline tickets from Los Angeles to San Francisco never materialized from Law and information about production details was inadequate.
“We had been promised a certain level of lighting, sound and venue, as well as travel accommodations for the designer and crew,” Arguelles said. “We decided it wasn’t going to be at the level we expected or would require.”
Bay Area designer Cari Borja, who showed her fashions at Sunday’s backup event, said she sensed fashion week was in trouble after receiving a list of buyers from department stores and boutiques who were slated to attend that looked too good to be true.
Van der Watt was philosophical. The original show would have been the U.S. launch of van der Watt’s Black Coffee line of apparel for women over 30. “Next year for fall we will start looking seriously to get into trade shows,” he said.