LOS ANGELES — St. John can’t seem to help itself lately when it comes to surprises.
The knitwear company, which last week announced that Angelina Jolie would star in a multiyear advertising campaign for the brand, plans for the first time to present a spring 2006 collection at fashion week here next month, WWD has learned.
“As we now enter the fashion arena — or aspire to — the first stop is L.A. Fashion Week,” St. John chief executive officer Richard Cohen said Tuesday. “We’re a California-based company, so our first step forward is to do it here.”
St. John is slated to close Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios on Oct. 20. The five-day program being produced by 7th on Sixth begins on Oct. 16. Asked whether Jolie would attend, Cohen said: “I have no idea. Honestly.”
The decision is Cohen’s latest move to reenergize the 40-year-old Irvine, Calif.-based company, founded by Bob and Marie Gray, which succeeded with its crease-free, knit suits and gowns. Marie Gray and her daughter, Kelly, the brand’s creative director and advertising star, resigned in July. Supermodel Gisele Bündchen replaced Kelly Gray in the current ad campaign shot by Mario Testino.
While Jolie’s fashion week presence is an unknown, Jennifer Aniston is confirmed to cohost an event, also on Oct. 20, with Oscar de la Renta at a private residence. The event is “Couture Cares: A Benefit for Breast Cancer,” a first-time fashion show and luncheon. Benefactor Revlon/UCLA Breast Cancer Center is a cause célèbre among a battalion of high-profile women here, including the event’s co-chairs, Crystal Lourd and Stephanie Murray, who hope to make this an annual affair. Saks Fifth Avenue is also a partner in the benefit.
“The timing was right, although it was really a coincidence,” Lourd said of the scheduling of the luncheon during fashion week. “We had to work within Oscar’s schedule, and that was the one day in October it could happen.”
The next evening, there will be another first-time event when the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund hosts a gala here honoring the 10 finalists chosen under an initiative, sponsored by the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue. A committee of industry players determines the winner, who will receive as much as $200,000 to further develop the business, as well as managerial guidance and other support. The winner and finalists will appear in the November issue of Vogue, hitting newsstands Oct. 25. A party location is still being determined and the attendance of Anna Wintour hasn’t been confirmed.
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The inaugural Los Angeles Fashion Awards at downtown’s Orpheum Theater will be earlier on the same evening as the fashion fund event.
Another unexpected billing during the fashion week program at Smashbox: The return of Bradley Bayou. The designer left Halston last February to pursue his own signature company. His “debut” of the new day and evening line is at 9 p.m. Oct. 19 and is being underwritten by the marquee sponsor, Mercedes-Benz, an honor given to a single designer each season.
“I actually never left the business at all,” Bayou said in an interview from New York. “I’ve continued working with private clients. So why not premiere the new line in L.A.? That’s where I’m from and it’s a town that’s celebrated my clothes, so I should have a really good audience.”
St. John, too, is betting on a packed house. The company has never participated in a fashion week in any city. Instead, buyers from Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and its other main accounts, as well as consumers from as far as Dallas and Chicago, turned out twice yearly at a university auditorium near St. John’s headquarters in Irvine, Calif., for a runway presentation and cocktail party.
The event, which typically ran two to three hours — minus the refreshment hour — was taped for marketing purposes and served as both a booster event for hundreds of attending staff and a perk for loyal customers.
It was an integral part of the sometimes quirky culture during the founding family’s reign, when Kelly Gray would step out onto the catwalk and regale the rapt crowd with tales of her adventures on location during the campaign shoots she starred in for more than two decades.
Cohen said conversations to show at fashion week here began only last month.
“This is a new start for St. John; they’re reinventing the company and the collection, and it’s a huge resource based in California,” said Fern Mallis, 7th on Sixth’s executive director and vice president of IMG. “This shows L.A.’s fashion week is growing and evolving. I’m delighted.”
Other new entries to the lineup at Smashbox so far are Chan Luu, Anthony Franco; J’aime by actress Jaime Pressly, 575 Denim, Antik Denim, Desanka, Ya-Ya and Yana K.
Off-site, there are several new contenders, too, including Morphine Generation. And after a long hiatus, Jared Gold returns to the runway.