Concept Los Angeles Fashion Week

With one glaring exception, Los Angeles' recent crazy-quilt fall calendar of fashion-focused activities unfolded pretty much as planned with a handful of smaller shows that included labels such as Skingraft and Anthony Franco, plus two larger events: Concept Los Angeles Fashion Week, which showcased a handful of designers downtown, and Los Angeles Fashion Weekend at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood.

But that lone wrinkle was a real doozy. The 11th-hour cancellation of World Coast Management's long-planned Los Angeles Fashion Week — which had been scheduled to run Oct. 20 to 25 — caught the 14 participating designers (some slated to travel from Europe and Mexico) and the rest of the city's fashion faithful by surprise.

Event organizer Susan Costa did not return repeated calls seeking comment, but a media alert sent from Costa's e-mail address three days before the event's scheduled start blamed the last-minute cancellation on the Los Angeles Fire Department's refusal to sign off on a temporary-use permit for the downtown warehouse space WCM planned to use. A lack of any further detail kick-started rumors in the local fashion world, among them a conspiracy theory that forces within the mayor's office had moved to quash a fashion week event that didn't have the city's official stamp of approval.