Los Angeles Fashion Week opens with sparkly palettes and rock music: Look around

Noise, lights, a keyed-up crowd split down the middle by a glossy white strip of runway; that’s the scene at the Petersen Automotive Museum’s outdoor patio space. When Palaye Royale, a Canadian-American rock band from Las Vegas, takes over the top of the catwalk, the snare of the electric guitar fills the air. You can feel the drum beat in the cavity of your chest; you can feel your fingertips pulse. Then, lead singer Remington Leith tears through the music with a tightly wound scream, and the show begins. 

Los Angeles Fashion Week is back on Oct. 7 after a year-long, pandemic-induced hiatus, and despite the mask and the temperature checks reminding us of what’s been, there’s a giddy sense of freedom edging through. There’s excitement. There are phones flying into the air, trying to capture the moment the first model steps onto the runway. 

Immediately, we’re plunged into the unknown, transported to a different time and space, in a world dreamed up by Jacob Meir, founder of For the Stars Fashion House. “This collection specifically was made because, after Covid was around for two years, there’s going to be [a need] to go all out and do something really [out of this world],” Meir tells me. 

Models are resplendent in gold with sculptural, priestly headdresses, borrowing from the pharaonic tropes of ancient Egypt, a country Meir loves and plucks inspiration from. Then, the line moves into an entirely paradoxical dimension: bug-eye masks and spiky bodysuits, armored metal frocks, biomorphic shapes and geometric skirts. In a final bit of theater, a model in a majestic, gold-adorned winged getup stretches her arms out for the cameras. As Meir tells it, “normal” isn’t really what his fashion house is about. 

In a sparkly segue, Lebanese designer Elie Madi bookended the evening, reclaiming all the sparkle and shine that we’d missed during our year-long lockdown. Think: A palette of rhinestones and head-to-toe sequins. Madi also made good use of movement with floor-length capes and delicate fabrics like lace, tulle and feathers. It was a romantic affair that truly marked the return of late-night soirees and of course, a long-awaited foray back into the world of fashion. 

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