ArchiTennis
April 10th, 2007, 02:27 AM
Made in Los Angeles
'Project Runway' Winner Jeffrey Sebelia Takes His Cues From Urban Living
by Kathleen Nye Flynn
It’s Wednesday night and fashion designer Jeffery Sebelia is rushing around an Industrial District loft compound that is packed to the brim with nearly a thousand extremely hip people.
A thick line of glamorous rocker-types and fashionistas trails around the building’s perimeter, all eagerly awaiting a viewing of Sebelia’s latest collection. Inside, guests drink caffeine-laced vodka and wander around crowded courtyards.
This is the first runway event for Sebelia since he won the Bravo reality television series “Project Runway” last year, where judges deemed the Downtown-based designer to be both the meanest and the most accomplished of the 15 contestants.
After the show ended, Sebelia used his $100,000 prize to pay back the loan that funded his three-and-a-half-year-old Cosa Nostra high-end apparel line. He moved out of the Mount Washington home where his ex-girlfriend and son live and into a Historic Core loft, near his studio on Broadway and Eighth streets.
Since the show ended last year, Sebelia’s fame ebbed while he worked on bringing Cosa Nostra - already worn by celebrities like musician Dave Navarro - back up to speed. Meanwhile, his bully antics on “Project Runway,” which at one point caused a contestant’s mother to cry, have gained him a mixed reputation.
But none of that mattered at the March 28 event. The crowd welcomed Sebelia back into the spotlight with an atmosphere of raunchy excitement, not to mention drunken ice fights and the lingering smell of marijuana.
"I really didn’t think anybody would show up,” Sebelia laughed backstage at the show as media, models and friends lavished him with praise.
The event was at 2121 Lofts, a yet-to-open brick and cement live/work complex that huddles between the Seventh Street Bridge and the Los Angeles River. It has an industrial grit not unlike the look and feel of Sebelia’s line.
Sebelia presented his fall street wear collection that features skinny leather pants, 1990s-style plaid shirts, heavy coats, clingy sweaters, frothy dresses and colorful wool leg warmers. Much like his final designs for “Project Runway,” the items hid subtle versions of the punky flair he is known for, like randomly placed zippers at the hemlines and hooded sweaters over satiny gowns.
"For fashion shows it’s better for the environment to reflect the designer more than for it to be in some sterile tent,” Sebelia said in a later interview. His anti-traditional show came a week after the city’s official Fashion Week events, held mostly in Culver City.
"I wanted to give people the same feeling I had back in 1986 when I went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Roxy, where there was a line around the block and inside it was crowded and smoky and crazy… almost dangerous. That’s what I wanted to happen: a big exciting thing for L.A., not even necessarily for fashion.”
Urban Appeal
On the Tuesday morning the week after the show, Sebelia, 36, smoked a cigarette on the patio of Banquette, the popular Historic Core cafe at Fourth and Main streets. The intimate restaurant is one of his haunts, and he can look up into the windows of the loft he rents in the Hellman Building.
It isn’t hard to see Sebelia’s passion for Downtown Los Angeles. First off, he literally wears Downtown on his arm, in the form of a 16-year-old tattoo that shows a slightly outdated skyline. (hehe, I only noticed the tattoo around his neck)
More figuratively, his new collection is an urban uniform that seems to mirror the architecture and concepts Downtown evokes. Skinny black suits resemble skyscrapers in the Central Business District; shiny, layered gowns, perfect for the opera, recall the slopes and planes of Walt Disney Concert Hall. And could that thick, thigh-length men’s wool coat worn by a greasy haired model be a nod to the figures on Skid Row?
The Downtown influence apparent in his collection could easily have been subconscious, Sebelia said. While he said that books depicting Japanese demons and 1,000-year-old skeletons were his main inspirations, the city’s urban core affects nearly every corner of his life.
He rides his bike the few blocks to his studio, where he keeps his fabric and sewing machines. He knows the community and attends gallery openings and the monthly Downtown Art Walk. When he needed a hairstylist for his show, he knocked on the door of Carlos Ortiz, who lives on his floor.
On the days that his 2-year-old son, Harrison Detroit, visits, Sebelia takes him to Lost Souls Café around the corner on Fourth Street, where Harrison bangs on the cafe’s drum set. Sebelia said he’s set up a place to play baseball in his loft.
"And I just got him new shoes at Blends across the street,” he added.
Gotham City
This is Sebelia’s second stint in Downtown. Fifteen years ago he lived in a raw loft space on Pico Boulevard. That was a different time in his life, just before he was in a band called Lifter and when he was in and out of drug abuse. Those were the days when, Sebelia said, he could have easily ended up on Skid Row instead of renting a fancy loft in the Historic Core.
At that point, he never knew he would one day become a fashion designer (a career he only began four years ago, after completing rehab) and he had no idea that Downtown would be an established place to live. But, even then he had hope.
"Years ago the L.A. Times ran an article about a proposal for renovating Downtown and it had a picture of Downtown L.A. in the future looking like this huge Gotham City,” Sebelia said. “I’ve been waiting since then for that to happen. I actually cut the picture out of the paper and framed it.”
Sebelia maintains that Downtown is not for everybody, but credits Los Angeles with his ability to have built a line in just four years, without any prior fashion experience.
"I started with no money, nothing. But it’s easier to do that here, just the idea that the space I have here is 2,500 square feet and is cheaper than 800 square feet in New York,” he said. “At the same time it’s also a major city. If you do something that can affect people then the world will find out about it.”
Indeed, the world has. Now, with Cosa Nostra back in the game and selling at boutique apparel stores across the city (prices range from the low hundreds to thousands of dollars), Sebelia said he hopes to start a new line that will focus on more casual pieces at a lower price.
"Cosa Nostra will still remain high end, but I’m talking to some companies about producing a line with a lower price point to distribute to a broader range of stores,” he said. “So people who find out about me and what I do and like it, can actually wear it.”
'Project Runway' Winner Jeffrey Sebelia Takes His Cues From Urban Living
by Kathleen Nye Flynn
It’s Wednesday night and fashion designer Jeffery Sebelia is rushing around an Industrial District loft compound that is packed to the brim with nearly a thousand extremely hip people.
A thick line of glamorous rocker-types and fashionistas trails around the building’s perimeter, all eagerly awaiting a viewing of Sebelia’s latest collection. Inside, guests drink caffeine-laced vodka and wander around crowded courtyards.
This is the first runway event for Sebelia since he won the Bravo reality television series “Project Runway” last year, where judges deemed the Downtown-based designer to be both the meanest and the most accomplished of the 15 contestants.
After the show ended, Sebelia used his $100,000 prize to pay back the loan that funded his three-and-a-half-year-old Cosa Nostra high-end apparel line. He moved out of the Mount Washington home where his ex-girlfriend and son live and into a Historic Core loft, near his studio on Broadway and Eighth streets.
Since the show ended last year, Sebelia’s fame ebbed while he worked on bringing Cosa Nostra - already worn by celebrities like musician Dave Navarro - back up to speed. Meanwhile, his bully antics on “Project Runway,” which at one point caused a contestant’s mother to cry, have gained him a mixed reputation.
But none of that mattered at the March 28 event. The crowd welcomed Sebelia back into the spotlight with an atmosphere of raunchy excitement, not to mention drunken ice fights and the lingering smell of marijuana.
"I really didn’t think anybody would show up,” Sebelia laughed backstage at the show as media, models and friends lavished him with praise.
The event was at 2121 Lofts, a yet-to-open brick and cement live/work complex that huddles between the Seventh Street Bridge and the Los Angeles River. It has an industrial grit not unlike the look and feel of Sebelia’s line.
Sebelia presented his fall street wear collection that features skinny leather pants, 1990s-style plaid shirts, heavy coats, clingy sweaters, frothy dresses and colorful wool leg warmers. Much like his final designs for “Project Runway,” the items hid subtle versions of the punky flair he is known for, like randomly placed zippers at the hemlines and hooded sweaters over satiny gowns.
"For fashion shows it’s better for the environment to reflect the designer more than for it to be in some sterile tent,” Sebelia said in a later interview. His anti-traditional show came a week after the city’s official Fashion Week events, held mostly in Culver City.
"I wanted to give people the same feeling I had back in 1986 when I went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Roxy, where there was a line around the block and inside it was crowded and smoky and crazy… almost dangerous. That’s what I wanted to happen: a big exciting thing for L.A., not even necessarily for fashion.”
Urban Appeal
On the Tuesday morning the week after the show, Sebelia, 36, smoked a cigarette on the patio of Banquette, the popular Historic Core cafe at Fourth and Main streets. The intimate restaurant is one of his haunts, and he can look up into the windows of the loft he rents in the Hellman Building.
It isn’t hard to see Sebelia’s passion for Downtown Los Angeles. First off, he literally wears Downtown on his arm, in the form of a 16-year-old tattoo that shows a slightly outdated skyline. (hehe, I only noticed the tattoo around his neck)
More figuratively, his new collection is an urban uniform that seems to mirror the architecture and concepts Downtown evokes. Skinny black suits resemble skyscrapers in the Central Business District; shiny, layered gowns, perfect for the opera, recall the slopes and planes of Walt Disney Concert Hall. And could that thick, thigh-length men’s wool coat worn by a greasy haired model be a nod to the figures on Skid Row?
The Downtown influence apparent in his collection could easily have been subconscious, Sebelia said. While he said that books depicting Japanese demons and 1,000-year-old skeletons were his main inspirations, the city’s urban core affects nearly every corner of his life.
He rides his bike the few blocks to his studio, where he keeps his fabric and sewing machines. He knows the community and attends gallery openings and the monthly Downtown Art Walk. When he needed a hairstylist for his show, he knocked on the door of Carlos Ortiz, who lives on his floor.
On the days that his 2-year-old son, Harrison Detroit, visits, Sebelia takes him to Lost Souls Café around the corner on Fourth Street, where Harrison bangs on the cafe’s drum set. Sebelia said he’s set up a place to play baseball in his loft.
"And I just got him new shoes at Blends across the street,” he added.
Gotham City
This is Sebelia’s second stint in Downtown. Fifteen years ago he lived in a raw loft space on Pico Boulevard. That was a different time in his life, just before he was in a band called Lifter and when he was in and out of drug abuse. Those were the days when, Sebelia said, he could have easily ended up on Skid Row instead of renting a fancy loft in the Historic Core.
At that point, he never knew he would one day become a fashion designer (a career he only began four years ago, after completing rehab) and he had no idea that Downtown would be an established place to live. But, even then he had hope.
"Years ago the L.A. Times ran an article about a proposal for renovating Downtown and it had a picture of Downtown L.A. in the future looking like this huge Gotham City,” Sebelia said. “I’ve been waiting since then for that to happen. I actually cut the picture out of the paper and framed it.”
Sebelia maintains that Downtown is not for everybody, but credits Los Angeles with his ability to have built a line in just four years, without any prior fashion experience.
"I started with no money, nothing. But it’s easier to do that here, just the idea that the space I have here is 2,500 square feet and is cheaper than 800 square feet in New York,” he said. “At the same time it’s also a major city. If you do something that can affect people then the world will find out about it.”
Indeed, the world has. Now, with Cosa Nostra back in the game and selling at boutique apparel stores across the city (prices range from the low hundreds to thousands of dollars), Sebelia said he hopes to start a new line that will focus on more casual pieces at a lower price.
"Cosa Nostra will still remain high end, but I’m talking to some companies about producing a line with a lower price point to distribute to a broader range of stores,” he said. “So people who find out about me and what I do and like it, can actually wear it.”