Fashion Darlings

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Insiders share what makes the Bay Area a breeding ground for sartorial talent.

 

By Somer Tejwani

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San Francisco doesn’t have a fashion week to rival New York’s, and it can’t claim to be the birthplace of haute couture, like Paris. The City by the Bay, however, has a rarified ability to deliver top creative talent, proving itself a gateway to fashion success for a lucky few. The city has nurtured award-winning fashion and jewelry designers featured on the pages of Vogue, the public relations directors who get them there and the fashion educators who cultivate the next generation.

“For some reason, the Bay Area is an enormous incubator for original thought and challenging concepts, not just in fashion but in technology, lifestyle, food, thinking, music and activism,” says Simon Ungless, director of the School of Fashion at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University. “We are not under the watchful eye of Seventh Avenue (also known colloquially as Fashion Avenue, in New York), so we don’t care if we make mistakes. This environment breeds creativity and collaboration that is constantly creating new ideas. In the Bay Area, we don’t tend to eat each others’ ideas, we support them.”

In this collaborative, creative environment, several of fashion’s top power players thrived, embarking on careers that would thrust them into the national spotlight.

Derek Lam 2011-official HEADSHOT Colin Lane -1Derek Lam

Growing up in San Francisco’s Sunset District, Derek Lam cultivated his aesthetic and sense of culture by taking trips to the city’s Asian Art Museum and the Museum of Modern Art—and, when he is back in the city, the designer lists Gump’s and Chinatown as his must-visit destinations. Although he didn’t truly become immersed in fashion until attending Parsons The New School for Design in New York, past collections have drawn on his West Coast roots as inspiration.

Lam was inspired by his upbringing—and piece written by art critic Peter Schjeldahl about California minimalist artists in the 1960s—when he brought a ray of California sunshine to New York runways with his spring/summer 2011 collection. Lam says that Schjeldahl’s piece brought back memories of how people in California lived, and he drew on that for the textures, prints and colors in the collection. The collection, among his most highly regarded, evoked images of West Coast style icons like Farrah Fawcett with slouchy shorts, platform sandals and shades of earthy colors.

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Alexander Wang

Like Lam, fashion designer Alexander Wang also grew up in San Francisco before moving to New York to study at Parsons The New School for Design and intern at Teen Vogue. After arriving in Manhattan, Wang also worked for a short time as an intern with Lam, learning from his fellow Bay Area before launching his own label.

As a teenager, he attended the Drew School, a small college preparatory high school in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, alongside other notable names in fashion editorial, Vanessa Traina (contributing fashion editor at T, The New York Times’ style magazine) and Samantha Traina (fashion editor at C magazine). Since those early days at Drew, the young designer has undeniably become a force in the fashion industry, with his eponymous label featuring men’s and women’s apparel, as well as accessories. In November 2012, he took the helm as creative director at Balenciaga, further cementing his status as a designer of international renown—a triumphant achievement for Wang, who rose to fame just a decade since leaving his Bay Area hometown.

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Ashley Berman

A San Francisco transplant, Ashley Berman got her start as a jewelry designer after moving to the city to study at the prestigious Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts and train alongside a local master goldsmith. She took her savings of just $2,000 (and her passion) to start a high-end jewelry design company, Ashley Morgan Designs. Years later, she’s been featured in the pages of fashion bible W Magazine and the shopper’s ultimate resource, Lucky Magazine. Most of her designs are worn by prominent socialites who meet at her atelier by private appointment, but she also was tapped for an exclusive, custom line, which is sold in Gump’s and features rare stones from the shop’s vault.

“San Francisco, alone, is such a multidimensional, multifaceted city with abounding natural beauty that avails itself in every corner,” Berman says. “The unique sensibilities, the thriving creativity and individual styles are what make this city such an incredibly inspiring place to work and  to live.”

The young designer says the local community embraces artists in all genres and thrives on the unique and individual objets d’art that set them apart. “Here, artists are celebrated for how they expand and evolve in their designs,” she explains. “It’s truly an incredible city where being an artist is appreciated and sanctioned.”

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Simon Ungless

Teaching the next generation of fashion greats—and also a force in the industry himself—Ungless is a graduate of University of the Arts London’s Central Saint Martins, a college for art and design in London. In his notable career, he’s worked with Givenchy, Paul Smith and Versace, but is most known for his early collaborations with Alexander McQueen. In fact, it was Ungless who was responsible for personally introducing Sarah Burton (the brand’s current creative director) to the late designer.

As creative director of contemporary brand Member Holiday in South Korea and the director of the School of Fashion at San Francisco’s Academy of Art University, Ungless has solid footing in both the practical and academic realms. Famed fashion illustrator Gladys Perint Palmer recruited Ungless 17 years ago while he was in London to assist her with developing the fashion program at Academy of Art University.

“When Gladys asked me to come to San Francisco, I jumped at the opportunity as I wanted to experience the environment that brought lifestyle design to the world,” Ungless says. “When I got here, I realized there was so much more; it’s literally a goldmine. The Bay Area and Northern California in general have been incredibly inspirational to my own work. There is incredible diversity in everything here, from neighborhoods to landscapes, microclimates, people, food, music, attitudes and history. Things change all the time here, and reference points that I find inspiring change all the time, so I’m a good match for the Bay Area.”

 42-30018650Lily Kwong

Model Lily Kwong, the fresh-faced beauty and Vogue-determined “it girl,” grew up in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood playing volleyball and baseball—a typical childhood in the city. Her adult years, however, have been anything but typical.

Kwong has become the ultimate fashion renaissance girl. Early on in her career, she helped launch cousin Joseph Altuzarra’s debut fashion collection—an experience she says was a better education than going to any design university. Kwong also has modeled for Zac Posen, Tory Burch and Chris Benz, worked for GQ magazine and Proenza Schouler, and recently launched her own collection of chic iPhone and iPad cases.

Named as one of Vogue’s 120 most important fashion influencers in 2012, Kwong herself may still be inspired by her Bay Area roots. Also in 2012, a spread for Vogue China featured her in designer clothes by Stella McCartney and Alexander Wang with the streets of San Francisco as her backdrop.

Though her travels have taken her around the world, she continues to returns to San Francisco, posting photos of the city’s iconic landmarks on her Instagram account along with high praise for her hometown.

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Danielle Goodman

Although the runways are the launching pad for trends, it’s the behind-the-scenes magic that fashion’s elite public relations directors are known for capturing.

As the public relations director for Nonoo—which is one of the most talked about new high fashion labels—and formerly on the public relations team for Prabal Gurung, Danielle Goodman is fully ensconced in New York fashion, but she got her start in San Francisco working for then start-up Pop Sugar.

“My fiance’s brother and sister-in-law lived in San Francisco and, after visiting them, I immediately fell in love with the city,” says Goodman, whose professional accomplishments include going through the prestigious CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund process with both Misha Nonoo and Prabal Gurung, as well as conceptualizing and producing Nonoo’s first runway show. “There’s this great entrepreneurial culture in San Francisco and an unbelievable support for all types of start-ups, whether it is in fashion, food or tech.”

The city’s start-up culture helped Goodman launch her own business, a high-end T-shirt design business called Anomaly Threads—which spawned a cult following in Japan—and eventually led Goodman to New York City and her career in the fashion industry.

“Besides the entrepreneurial culture, San Francisco has such a natural beauty everywhere you turn,” she says. “I think as a successful designer it’s very important to be able to blend art and commerce and enjoy life’s adventures. You aren’t going to get inspired sitting in an office all day.”

Whether they start or continue their careers in San Francisco, what ties these local fashion darlings together is that they have cultivated what Ungless calls a pioneer spirit, one that encourages newness without worrying about what the rest of the world will think or want.