BLONDE AMBITION: Yes, you recognize the surname, but have you peeped the clothes? Click through to check out looks from Kimberly Ovitz' first two collections.

2009: The Breakthroughs

Fail was the buzzword of the year. Thankfully some designers were able to transcend, and L.A.'s Kimberly Ovitz was one of them. Here's a look back at our interview.
Emili Vesilind
Published on September 30, 2009

It might be tempting to dismiss Kimberly Ovitz, daughter of polemic CAA co-founder Mike Ovitz, as another affluent heir dabbling in fashion design. If it weren’t for her career girl resume, that is—which includes apprenticeships at Chanel and J.Crew and design stints at Imitation of Christ and Ya-Ya, all burnishing a B.A. from Brown University.

And her eponymous label, which launched for Spring 2009, is miles more Rick Owens (who cut his teeth in L.A.’s fashion scene) than Paris Hilton. And like Owens—and fashion’s patron saint of edgy minimalism, Helmut Lang—Ovitz designs pared-down, sexy-androgynous clothes for the urban set. Not, like so many well-funded Hollywood dilettantes, frothy sportswear.

“I’ve always liked the more rough, edgy mensy look,” said the 26-year-old, who names Owens, Anne Demeulemeester, Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci and Martin Margiela among her influences.

The designer’s fall collection, inspired by artist Jasper John’s monochromatic White Flag, includes sharply tailored jackets and coats that feel slightly samurai in construction, pitch-perfect narrow trousers, a luxe evening jumpsuit and button-front shirts that strike a fetching balance between fitted and baggy—all rendered in Coco Chanel’s favorite anti-color pairing, black and white.

“Black and white is how I dress daily—that’s my aesthetic,” said Ovitz, who grew up around J.Crew co-founder Emily Scott, “a huge style icon” she also counts as a fashion mentor. “J.Crew and Chanel, both at their cores started with [those] classic colors, with black and white.”

But the oomph in Ovitz’ apparel, which hovers in the $300s and $400s for core pieces, lies in the details, i.e. tone-on-tone leather strips checkering a pant’s waistline, a shirttail that hangs a tad too long in the back.

“I’ve been fortunate enough that growing up, I was able to experience a lot,” she said, by way of explaining her refined-beyond-her-years sensibilities. “Traveling all around the world, to Japan and Italy and Africa, you get to see so many different walks of life. I was always taken to museums…I rode horses. And even going to school on the East Coast, that opened my eyes to New England and the more sophisticated, preppy aesthetic. That definitely touched me.”

As did her time in Chanel czar Karl Lagerfeld’s atelier, an experience she describes as “incredible.” While there, she spent days inside Lagerfeld’s actual studio, observing fittings from a side table cluttered with assistants, but also worked in the fabric room and with the merchandising team as part of a “really broad overview,” she explained. “I definitely took away the idea of what Chanel represents—the black and white and classicism in the line.”