Fashion Designers

With mid-priced collections as upscale-looking and lavishly detailed as those on the New York runways for fall, who needs to pay top dollar for fashion? So much of the excitement during the New York Fashion Week shows that wrapped up on Thursday was about the so-called advanced contemporary category of labels that cost less than high-end designer collections without sacrificing style. Among those creating a buzz: Rag & Bone, Tory Burch, Alexander Wang, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Helmut Lang, Theyskens Theory and even the  J. Crew Collection.

In his showroom of sequins and serapes, Manuel Cuevas--the clothier of cowboy cool--flips through color glossies of duded up Dwight Yoakam, the country-Western singer. There's DY in a royal blue CJ--that's designer talk for California Jacket--a 30-year-old jacket style reinvented for Yoakam by Mexican-born Manuel, who is known far and wide by his first name only. Flip. Here's DY in a cherry-red CJ. Flip. And DY in a CJ that is pure JC--Johnny Cash black.

You can catch Los Angeles fashion designer Rachel London's styles in an exhibit at the Louvre next year. Or turn on MTV right now and view one of her body-hugging "flower power" outfits in LL Cool J's music video "Big Ole Butt." Here in Los Angeles, you can visit Rachel London's Garden, the designer's eye-popping boutique on Melrose Avenue.

With a touch of bitterness, designer Miguel Adrover speaks of being a rising star one season and not even mentioned the next. He's trying to move on. "I need to believe in myself and my work and not pay attention to others." Still, a successful comeback rides on his 20-minute show Saturday night at the Bryant Park tents and the critical response to his spring 2003 collection after missing a season.

Prominent fashion designer Anand Jon has been charged with multiple counts of rape and sexual assault involving three alleged victims, the youngest a 15-year-old girl, prosecutors said Tuesday. Beverly Hills police arrested Jon on March 6 after a woman said he raped her. The 33-year-old designer to the stars, whom Newsweek named one of the people to watch in its "Who's Next in 2007" issue, remains jailed.

The leather can be stubborn. A heavy-tooling cowhide, it lies stiff and dull. "It is not a pretty leather," fashion designer Abel Villarreal says. "It is not delicate." But it suits Villarreal's purpose. He kneads with strong fingers and stitches with wide, flat lacing. Sometimes he reaches for a mallet and pliers, sometimes the point of an awl, to create an envisioned line or curve. The leather can feel as hard as granite. This is fashion as sculpture.

Pamela Zoolalian's idea of fun? Hurtling down a road at 60 or more miles an hour, two inches above the asphalt, supine on her luge board. Dangerous? You bet. But, Zoolalian will tell you, when it comes to living dangerously, her sport of street luge, an outgrowth of downhill skateboarding and a sort of renegade cousin to the Olympic sport of ice luge, is child's play compared with her day job as a fashion designer.

The Japanese presence at the fall ready-to-wear collections has never been more apparent. But the clothes making the strongest impression are by French designers who relate fashion to current events in Eastern Europe. Japanese-born Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garcons was among the first big names to show. The disheveled look ruled her runway on Thursday.

Sandwiched between bright bikinis and bouncy biker shorts on the fashion runway was a model wearing a pink swimsuit, crudely painted with the words "Keep Our Water Clean." Her beach coat, made from plastic six-pack circles, was trimmed with medical syringes. Robin Piccone, designer of the eyesore outfit, delivered the surprise "personal message" to more than 600 people on the night she was named California Designer of the Year.

The subdued Filipino monk in the flowing black robe suddenly becomes animated. He's talking about clothes. He has caused a stir in religious circles by designing a striking collection of Roman Catholic vestments, those pieces of liturgical clothing worn by priests. There are 50 vestments, all hand-woven by indigenous people of the Philippines and each with its own origin.