Is June Becoming L.A.’s Unofficial Fashion Month?

Twice a year, conversation surrounding the runway season inevitably resurrects the age-old question: When will Los Angeles have its own legitimate fashion week — one on par with those events in New York and across the globe?

There’s Style Fashion Week, held twice a year with fashion shows as well as art installations and a marketplace, but for now, most L.A.-based brands, including CFDA Award winner Brock Collection, as well as Frame Denim, Raquel Allegra and NewbarK, pack up their collections and head East in order to get their work seen by buyers and the mostly New York-based fashion media. 

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However, as Resort (the season traditionally catering to those who cruise out of town in winter months, with clothing landing in stores in December/January but shown on the runways in May/June) and other off-season collections becoming a greater force for European fashion houses, Southern California is repeatedly being tapped as a Resort runway destination of choice by brands like Louis Vuitton, Saint Laurent and most recently, Dior, which showed in Calabasas on May 11.

At the same time, L.A. is becoming the de facto center for the burgeoning luxury streetwear market, which is deeply enmeshed with the West Coast hip-hop community, and is becoming a growth segment of the fashion industry in general with the rise of such brands as Off-White by Virgil Abloh and Amiri and recent collaborations between Louis Vuitton and Supreme, Justin Bieber and Fear of God, Rihanna and Puma, Alexander Wang and Adidas and more.

The trend bodes well for the growth of Made L.A.’s annual open-to-the-public, music- and fashion-filled weekend, which last year boasted shows by Hood By Air, Tyler the Creator’s Golf Wang and Moschino, as well as a star-studded front-row turnout.

This weekend, Made L.A. returns with an Opening Ceremony fashion show, followed by performances and fashion presentations from RZA of Wu Tang Clan, Joyrich x Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa x Taylor Gang. (Get tickets here.) And this time, other fashion events seem to be clustering around it. This week alone, Jeremy Scott is presenting his Resort collection for Moschino at Milk Studios in Hollywood; Philip Lim is opening his new store in DTLA; Lancome is celebrating its first Venice pop-up store with a media event with ambassador Taylor Hill; and ASOS, The Reformation and Madewell are all hosting local celebrations.

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Of course, each of these events comes with their own afterparties and after-afterparties, which are sure to be crawling with the A-list talent and children-of models who live close by.

Though a couple of other events have been sprinkled in between the biannual fashion months and the resort season, including Hermes’ menswear presentation in March (and not to mention the mad fashion extravaganza that Coachella has become), June is proving itself to be L.A.’s most prominent fashion moment in time.

We’re guessing it’s only a matter of time before Mr. West, unofficial chief marketing officer of the city of Calabasas, decides to present his Yeezy collection close to home.