The Week-Long Event Celebrates Local LGBTQ+ Designers with A Series of Designers and Artists
NiK Kacy, the founder and president of gender-free luxury brand, NiK Kacy Footwear, brings the first Equality Fashion Week to Los Angeles in partnership with the newly-renovated boutique hotel, Montrose West Hollywood.
Equality Fashion Week (EFW) will take place during LA Fashion Week, October 5-9, 2018 and is the first LGBTQ+-focused fashion week to take place in Los Angeles, celebrating the queer fashion community in all its colorful spectrums in a five-day experience of LGBTQ+ artists and designers. Montrose West Hollywood will exclusively host all EFW-related events that will include pop-ups, fashion displays, and an exclusive fashion show on the rooftop of the hotel.
EFW will kick-off October 5 with an exclusive fashion show on the renovated rooftop of Montrose West Hollywood, hosted by Carmen Carrera, the American reality television personality, model, burlesque performer and actress known for her work on RuPaul’s Drag Race and RuPaul’s Drag U. Carrera is also the first openly transgender person to wed on reality television.
Participating designers include Sharpe Suiting, Stuzo Clothing, Hologram City, DapperBoi, Fem/Haüs, Lior Boroda as well as NiK Kacy Footwear.
Beginning October 6, each featured designers’ collection will be on display at Montrose West Hollywood for public viewing. From 4pm-7pm each day, various designers will be available for a meet-and-greet during the hotels complimentary Vino & Vinyl happy hour in the hotel’s Tone lounge. A full schedule of events will be available on the Equality Fashion Week website, equalityfashionweek.com.
Equality Fashion Week is a non-traditional event that is breaking all the rules and defying conventional standards with a loud message of diversity and inclusion. With the endeavor to create a morally accountable fashion week, Kacy is rallying fashion enthusiasts, designers, influencers, tastemakers and industry executives around the trans issue partnering with the TransLatina Coalition who will receive proceeds from the event.
“Equality Fashion Week is something I’ve envisioned since my very first time presenting at a queer fashion show. I’ve attended and presented at several queer fashion shows across the country and even in Toronto and always wondered why LA didn’t have one yet. As a community, LTQ members are the most underrepresented of the group and often not visible to the mainstream and even within our own community. There is so much talent and LA has been the hub of so much queer fashion revolution. After 4 years in the queer fashion world, I finally had the opportunity to bring my vision to life with the help of the Montrose West Hollywood team. I hope that with this partnership we can build a week-long event each year that gives a platform for queer artists and designers to not only express themselves but also to help create financial opportunities for them. Creating ways to help our community obtain more visibility, exposure and work will lead to us being able to lift the rest of the community. This entire event is about bringing the larger community and our allies together to create a positive impact for everyone. That is what Equality means.”