LA Textile at CMC
California Market Center, Los Angeles California
I followed an unclothed female mannequin, being pushed on skateboard wheels by its human handler, across the pedestrian bridge on Olympic Boulevard and entered the automatic glass doors of the California Market Center in Downtown Los Angeles. In the heart of LA’s vibrant Fashion District, I was here to check out LA Textile, which was back live and in person after the pandemic instigated pause of the last year.
Woman pushing a mannequin at LA Textile
Billed as “the fashion industry’s premier West Coast destination for Textile, Design and Production resources from around the globe,” the trade show was held in the vast, loft-like space on the tenth floor of CMC and featured over one hundred different vendors and manufacturers in the textile industry. Beautifully organized in the LA Textile guide into a map of logical groups, button makers and trim suppliers shared the venue with premium and designer collections of luxury fabrics and manufacturers of faux fur, denim, novelty fabrics, specialty knits, silks, synthetics, and woven/shirtings. As I walked down each aisle and took in all of the colors and the textures, the array of goods on display was breathtaking, and any lover of fabrics and textiles would have been equally moved. I watched as several potential buyers gingerly fingered the sheer lace tulles and fishnets at Solstiss, a French purveyor of centuries-old luxury delicate fabrics woven on looms in its European workshop. Then, only moments later, I was looking at a stunning, vast array of buttons from ABM Fashion, an LA-based eco-conscious maker of sustainable fasteners using natural and recycled materials. Located at one end of the loft, K & I / Kosha Collections displayed an exuberant array of hundreds of textiles, including many complex handloom Ikat wovens and also Batik fabrics, in a fantastic showcase of geometrical patterning and textures, while at the opposite side of the venue, Uluadag Textile Exporters from Turkey presented an equally profuse display of vibrant color. I also made a purposeful stop at the booth of Robert Kaufman Fabrics, a Los Angeles manufacturer of cotton fabrics that are enormously popular with quilters everywhere. Like my fellow quilters, I was especially interested in their Kona Cotton Solids, which are available in 365 spectacular colors appealing directly to my love of the color wheel and how we visually organize complementary colors and hues into primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. The colors of this particular fabric are inspiring to me as a visual artist and have the same effect on me as looking at an expansive array of paints and watercolors. This is happiness in its most pure form.
Textiles on display at LA Textile
LA Textile provided additional opportunities to delve further into the business world of the fashion industry and offered three days of seminars, including a day-long sustainability workshop for attendees. I was especially interested in the seminar that I attended on Friday on “Working with Artisans and Sustainability,” which was presented by Shamini Shanmugham and Edurne Jordana, both of The Little Market, a nonprofit fair-trade shop in Los Angeles with an eclectic collection of ethically sourced, artisan made products from around the world. The hour-long conversation focused on how businesses might help create new opportunities for artists, while also helping to preserve traditional manufacturing techniques. Both presenters acknowledged that working with artisans also means adapting to the slower pace that hand crafting involves and expressed deep respect for the artisans, to large extent women, that The Little Market partners with. They identify their process as “a collaborative relationship,” and bring the products “to life by naming the artisan.” Key takeaway points that the audience was asked to reflect on included fair trade practices, preserving traditions and working with small groups, consideration of limited quantities, and artisanal handcrafting as a collaborative process.
Illustration of Nicki Voss by Akiko Kato Ruiz
My final stop was to pick up the fashion illustration portrait that Akiko Kato Ruiz had drawn of me, using a photo that she had taken earlier that morning with her iPad. Akiko is the owner/illustrator of akr Design Studio, and she was at LA Textile for all three days as their resident Fashion Sketch Artist, creating custom portraits for attendees who wanted to see themselves rendered in 2D color. Fashion illustration is its own unique style of drawing and mark making, different from other drawing genres and types of focus. It was fun to look at the portraits that Akiko had sketched and colored and how she captured the image of the sitter, while transforming their likeness into a stylistically appropriate fashion work of art. I loved the version that she did of me and how she captured my look, right down to the shiny bling glitter at the corners of my black eyeglasses.
After several inspired and packed hours of gathering research, I left through the same doors that I had come in earlier, only this time there was no mannequin to accompany me back to the parking garage. Now, I wished that I was the one with skateboard wheels on my feet as I trekked up several ramps back to my waiting car.
LA Textile, I’ll be back in February, 2022!