Ralph Lauren is set to hold the brand’s first West Coast runway show.
The 82-year-old designer will head to Southern California to present his spring 2023 men’s and women’s collections in what is set to be “a special fashion experience that will be uniquely Ralph Lauren”, according to WWD.
The show will take place on October 13 but no other details have been revealed.
Ralph Lauren’s California show comes after fashion brands Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Saint Laurent, all showed their collections on the West Coast in recent times.
L.A. Fashion Week at the Petersen Automotive Museum is hoping for an even bigger future with new owner N4XT Experiences.
The global tech and events company launched in 2022 by former Fenty chief creative officer Ciarra Pardo, Spring Place president and co-founder Imad Izemrane, and entertainment and finance veterans Marcus Ticotin, Keith Abell and Jackie Trebilcock purchased the event in January 2022 for an undisclosed sum.
The new stakeholders are betting on tech, off-runway events and buzzy designers to recharge L.A. Fashion Week, which has a long and messy history.
Through the last two-plus decades, from indie-style shows from local designers held in far-flung locations, to the coordinated effort at Smashbox Studios under a five-year partnership with IMG that ended in 2008, L.A. has never had the cred of New York, London, Milan or Paris — or the international attendance.
Pardo, who spent 17 years working with Rihanna, Savage and Fenty, is well positioned to rebrand the event at the museum. In addition, Spring Place, part of the Spring Group that hosts New York Fashion Week and the Tribeca Film Festival, will host related L.A Fashion Week experiences and events at its Beverly Hills members’ only club.
She envisions a fashion week that is unique to L.A., and both consumer and industry-focused, but acknowledges there is room to improve on the professionalism of the shows, including the notoriously hour-plus late start times, for one.