End of the runway for L.A. Fashion Week?

Laurie Pike posts at the Los Angeles Magazine blog ChicLeak that involved sources believe the Fashion Week partnership between IMG and Culver City’s Smashbox Studios will go away after October's shows. There are some alternatives in the works, Pike says.

IDG World Expo, a trade show company, will bring “REVEAL Los Angeles…The Fashion & Design Event” to the new L.A. Live (among other downtown venues) March 20-22. That event will mix runway presentations with a trade show, emphasizing sportswear and the business side of the industry rather than celebrity attendance or high-fashion design.

A funkier and less corporate approach is being planned for October by BOXeight, an arts organization that last year attracted Mayor Villaraigosa to a fashion shows by Eduardo Lucero and Louis Verdad in the restored St. Vibiana Cathedral. It will be BOXeight’s fourth consecutive season of presentations, this time taking place in its new gallery space on Washington and Central downtown. BOXeight’s Peter Gurnz says the venue can accommodate 1,300 people. “We want to have established and emerging designers,” he said. “We are pushing designers to embrace what is unique about L.A., a synthesis of music, art, and fashion. We want the rogue, indie, more progressive designers--the fun ones.”

Simmering on the back burner are two other concepts that would move Fashion Week to Hollywood. One event would be put on by a coalition of veteran fashion publicists and event producers (Bryan Rabin, Evolutionary Media Group, Genevieve Productions); another would be a festival of fashion, music, film, and art organized by Steven Gerstein, a stylist who has helped coordinate the Levi’s presence at the annual South by Southwest music festival in Austin.

An IMG spokesperson wouldn't comment on the speculation.