Fashion's Night Out Is All About the A-Wear-Ness

It's about fashion and fun, being festive and celebrating shopping. Fashion's Night Out, a global initiative founded by Vogue Magazine and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, will be more than that to the city of West Hollywood.

"We felt that we wanted to bring awareness to our fashion here," said Ryan Farber, executive director of The Avenues, the West Hollywood business improvement district.

Fashion's Night Out, coming up on Sept.10, will feature numerous fashion retailers staying open from 6 p.m to 10 p.m., providing food and other special enticements to get people to come out and shop.

"It started in New York and it was wildly successful," Farber said. "They wanted to promote shopping for fashion and to stimulate shopping. [It's] in a creative, festive environment that would give it a little oomph, give it a little kick," he said.

"Our approach to it is more we feel like it's our responsibility," said Jaime Garcia, vice president of the west coast division of renowned fashion retailer 3.1 Phillip Lim. "It's just something exciting and new for the city."

Even though the event will draw business to the store, Garcia said that the event was as much about building relationships, especially with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The store is working with the museum to feature portraits by artist James Jean that will be sold at the Lim store on Fashion's Night Out, with the profits going to LACMA.

According to Maribel Louie, the economic development analyst for the city of West Hollywood, the event won't hurt the city's bottom line, but she's not expecting it to shatter records, either.

"It's not going to make or break the retail season for sure," she said, explaining that the event was more about awareness than immediate sales. "I think, really, Fashion's Night Out will certainly draw people's attention to West Hollywood. We're positive once they see what's here, they'll come back."

And what is there is a growing collection of high-end fashion retailers, such as Phillip Lim, Stella McCartney and John Varvatos. Louie said that it's not clear yet what impact these businesses have on the city's bottom line.

"I'm in the middle of the research," she said, explaining that the area is growing and more fashion designers have decided that they can be as successful there as neighboring Beverly Hills.

"Those are the things that we've been really excited about. From an economic development, we should start looking closely and running the numbers and finding out what is the economic impact of having these fashion designers in the city," said Louie.

In addition to participating businesses staying open late and having their own events, the city of West Hollywood will provide a free shuttle with six stops around The Avenues district, which is bounded by Santa Monica Boulevard, La Cienega Boulevard, Beverly Boulevard and Doheny Drive.

To find out more information about Fashion's Night Out or to view the list of participating retailers visit the Avenues' website.