Channeling the city's unique roots into modern clothes, a new crop of young designers is carrying the torch of men's fashion in Los Angeles.

 

I don’t want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light,” Alvy Singer, Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall, famously said of Los Angeles, reinforcing a long-held belief that Southern California is where culture goes to die. And while it’s true that the palm-tree-lined home of Hollywood has long been ridiculed or just plain ignored when it comes to fashion, a few things have changed since 1977, and a rising crop of talented young menswear designers is shifting the style world’s gaze westward.

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One of the most prominent figures in this newly emerging scene is John Elliott. In the two years since he started his eponymous label, the 32-year-old designer has amassed a fervent following around his canny and creative take on streetwear basics—one that includes the likes of Kanye West and J.R. Smith, both of whom showed up to support him at his first-ever runway show during New York Fashion Week last February.

 

“While New York, San Francisco, Paris, and Tokyo are pushing out the younger creatives that really fuel innovation, L.A. is so vast, it’s still welcoming to struggling artists,” says Elliott, who originally hails from Northern California, but set up shop here for manufacturing purposes. “The ability to be hands-on was a major motivating factor.”

 

Joshua Willis of Second/Layer, a Venice-based brand founded three years ago, also cites accessibility to production as a boon for SoCal designers, at least for most items. “Most of the production in L.A. is T-shirts, fleece, and denim,” says Willis. “But finding good people to do semi-tailored goods is quite challenging.” Willis runs Second/Layer along with his brother Jacob and friend Anthony Franco. All three men are L.A. natives, which heavily informs their current design aesthetic: gender-neutral silhouettes constructed from “no-season” fabrics like gabardines and double-faced cotton for looks that are at once tailored and breathable.

 

Los Angeles itself, with its unique geography and influence on youth culture, often serves as a visible inspiration for these designers’ work—high-end clothing with an emphasis on comfort and fluidity, as well as inventive takes on sportswear basics like jeans, tees, hoodies, and coats, all of which embody the city’s consummate laid-back cool. As Willis puts it: “Los Angeles is always going to garner a level of respect because its ideals are married with cool. I think people are looking for more than just good-quality clothing or cool styling, both of which are mandatory, and to us that’s where the culture comes in. It’s all about the story and it feeling authentic and genuine.”

 

“I think Los Angeles is perfect. The geography allows my mind to be free," says Rhuigi Villaseñor, the Philippines-born founder and designer of RHUDE, a brand that was put on the map in 2012 when its allover bandana-print T-shirt was worn by L.A. royalty Kendrick Lamar and Kobe Bryant. Since then, RHUDE has expanded to a full line. Villaseñor’s latest collection is a tweaked homage to biker culture, with leather jackets, distressed denim pieces, and layered hooded sweatshirts. Though there’s plenty of California in the 23-year-old’s designs, there are also hints of his art-school background and multicultural upbringing. “When I design, I use L.A. inspiration as the silhouette,” he says, “then I counter with a culture that I find interesting.”

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