oh… HELLS yes!
You heard it HERE first.
From apparelnews.net:
It’s not every day two former circus performers join forces to launch a clothing line…
Performers-turneddesigners Jonny Cota and Cassidy Haley launched their Skin.Graft Designs in 2005 after years of designing and creating their own costumes. Cota was a DJ and circus performer in Northern California, while Haley was a singer in a rock band and circus performer in Southern California. Initially a custom collection, Skin Graft Designs, will launch for a wider audience for Spring ’08, when the designers exhibit a readyto- wear version of the line at the Pooltradeshow in Las Vegas in August.
Gen Art members and fashion followers got a preview of the collection on June 9, when Cota and Haley presented their designs on the runway at the Pooltradeshow headquarters in Los Angeles’ Silverlake district.
The looks on the runway ranged from the theatrical to the sublime. A male model in an ensemble adorned with violin strings opened the show by running a bow across the different panels to create a surreal soundtrack. Other looks were more wearable but as detailed. For women, there were leather jackets with corset lacing, embroidery, inset painted panels, snakeskin trim and swags of chains. Models wore ruffled minis and fishtail shirts or long sweeping ball gowns. Accessories were equally unorthodox—a cargo garter belt, for example, peeked below the flounce of a shirt hem.
For men, there were leather pants with articulated knees, grommets and lacing, cropped pants with cargo pockets and zippers, and leather jackets that fit like a second skin.
Closing the show was a show-stopping leather coat and ball skirt in dusty charcoal. The elaborately ruffled skirt had frayed—almost decayed—edges. When the model reached the end of the runway, she threw up her arms in a puff of talcum-powder “smoke.”