LA Times Reviews BOXeight Fashion Show Audiences - And My Hat!

Adam Tschorn appears to have commandered Booth Moore's personal ship of state, THE WORLD IS MY RUNWAY blog, on this Saturday morning. He also appears to have run up a black skull flag before he took out his spyglass and examined the audience on day one of the BOXeight Fashion Shows. Luckily for all involved, Adam was entertained by everything he saw.

However, unless Adam can offer a considerably better definition of 'grizzled' - than I can find in my dictionary - tonight's audience may witness Mr. Tschorn... walking a very short plank off a very tall runway.

See below for details:

Taking an early pulse of L.A. Fashion Week

This blog space is usually reserved for editor Booth Moore and her jaunts around the globe, but since L.A. Fashion Week is "home turf" for the Image staff, we're going to be joining in for some guest blogging -- from the streets of downtown to the tents of Culver City and beyond. Adam Tschorn kicks it off with a view from the pews (well there used to be pews, anyway) of the former St. Vibiana's cathedral in downtown L.A.

The first installment of BOXeight’s two-day, alterna-Fashion Week felt like a “Zoolander” outtake: Mayor Villaraigosa’s red carpet pop-in, Diane Pernet and her towering beehive of a hairdo, Clint Catalyst decked out in a black velvet top hat so tiny it could have been swiped from an organ grinder’s monkey.

The fashion fever-dream was presided over by founder “Pirate” Pete Gurnz, decked in what looked like untethered overalls and floppy work boots, and his grizzled fireplug of a first mate Brady “Ten Gallon” Westwater, who was pressing the flesh and working the crowd like a candidate.

We couldn’t see the mayor’s location at the Louis Verdad show from where we sat, but we’re told he was seated in the second row, a breach of VIP etiquette remedied by the time the Eduardo Lucero show hit the runway.

Another second-row hostage at the Verdad show was singer and former Whitney Houston spouse Bobby Brown, who had made headlines just the day before for a reported (and later denied) heart attack. Sitting behind us, in a pair of red corduroys, blue-and-white striped shirt and a V-neck sweater, accessorized with a huge diamond in his left ear and a newsboy cap parked jauntily on his head, Brown appeared to be full of vigor.

After a seemingly endless barrage of flashbulbs, we turned and introduced ourselves.

“You’re a pretty popular man,” we said.

“I guess maybe just this week,” he responded with a chuckle.
adam.tschorn@latimes.com

And, no, Adam - the Mayor was not a second row hostage. After he met with Verdad to congratulate him, the Mayor had to attend to official city business before he came back for the Lucero show.