Image Makers

A face is never just a face in Los Angeles. Well, it is. Kind of. You know how it be. People use theirs to get theirs out here. And that begins with knowing what you have. Superior facial awareness is a valuable commodity in this city. Many pray at the altar of angles to the gods who (we hope) see only our good side. Actors and thespians get the most props for knowing what to do with their mugs. But molding oneself into a desirable image is a form practiced by more than just the most recognizable people in this company town.

It’s not enough to possess glamorous cheek bones, muscular jawlines, rejiggered noses and defined brow ridges. The assets must work for you. You can only fake it for so long. The West Hollywood boot camps for your face, the Insta-friendly reconstructive surgeries in Studio City and the filters that monopolize the billboards on La Cienega and Santa Monica are just projections for projection’s sake. Image making is about expressing something. There should always be some there there.

You can’t have style without substance. In L.A., material matters; what we pull from breathes energy into what we create. Sometimes we grab from experience, other times we tap the elements. Some prefer to look inside. The conduits channel inspiration from without. That last point is worth stopping on for a sec: For all the linking and building and lip service to “community,” image making is, at its core, a practice of connecting meaningfully with a source. It means nothing if you don’t give. The cornerstone of image making is adding value so others can do the same.

Last year, the “Image Makers” of L.A. tried to tell you: Style is a communal affair. A wise dogg once sang from the rafters: “It ain’t no fun, if the homies can’t have none.” So, this year, we’ve decided to double down, and let a new class of Image Makers show you where fashion is going: to the root.

Our second installment of “Image Makers” is about synthesizing and seizing all the means of production. The designers, models, fashion workers, artists in this issue have something radical in store. Come Tees OG Sonya Sombreuil can show you how clothing can be a medium through which to interact with, and challenge, the world. Tommy Bogo, of TOMBOGO, will give you a sneak peek of the future of functional high fashion. Nancy Stella Soto will take you to the Fashion District for an on-site master class in treating each garment as a canvas for experimentation. Ashley S.P. and Jennifer Zapata of Género Neutral can help you understand why physical spaces in L.A. have always been sacred.

Fashion wouldn’t be anything without the narrative threads that make the work. There are the stories that are sewn in; but just as important are the stories that are told once the clothes come on. We’ve assembled a cast of models — Briana King, Sarita Fernandez, Eddie Lopez Bautista, Bay Davis, Natalia Lemper, Julissa Aaron, the Polio Brothers, Tianna Arata — to school you on the art of folding one's experience into the narrative.

Before you leave, we’ll take you down memory lane: Mom n Dad Vintage is going to pull a few ’90s/2000s fits for your nostalgic pleasure and we’ll revisit the film set crew jacket as a totem of a bygone era. That’s the thing about L.A. style. — it’s all about showing your work. Catch what the Image Makers are laying down. There’s more than enough material for you to create something for yourself.

Ian F. Blair
Editor in Chief

Image logo by Vivi Naranjo For The Times