Monah

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DANIEL TAUB

Staff Reporter

Monah Li has become one of L.A.’s hottest designers, but she is not widely known outside fashion circles. That’s why the prospect of having an actress wear one of her creations at the Academy Awards becomes the marketing opportunity of a lifetime.

And she’s counting on Hollywood’s edgy young stars, such as Salma Hayek, Lauren Holly and Christina Ricci, to help her pull it off.

“It’s always the big designers, but I think I have a very big chance someone might wear my stuff definitely,” said the Austrian-born Li.

She designs upscale-but-offbeat dresses, tops and skirts over-dyed in such attention-getting colors as apple green and pastel purple. It’s far from the kind of formalwear designed by the likes of Giorgio Armani, Vera Wang and Donna Karan.

“Monah Li really symbolizes the new Hollywood,” said stylist Phillip Bloch, who has worked with Hayek, Sandra Bullock, John Travolta, Jenna Elfman and others. “Just in this year alone, Hollywood has changed the style of Hollywood. I think the girls are really into doing different things, and (they’re developing a) personal style. Monah’s very reflective of that. People want to be very funky. They don’t want to be cardboard cutouts.”

Li has found considerable success with her designs, generating revenues of about $100,000 a month now that her clothes are carried by Fred Segal, Nordstrom and Traffic, as well as her own store in the Los Feliz district, which opened last October.

Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz, Meg Ryan and Demi Moore have worn Li-designed clothing to movie premieres, awards ceremonies and photo shoots. And Li even outfitted a couple of magazine reporters at last year’s Academy Awards one from People and one from the New Yorker.

But the Oscars continues to be the most sought-after exposure an opportunity for younger designers to make their mark among women all over the world.

This year, like every year, it’s an uphill battle.

“I think we’re realizing, OK, obviously (best actress nominee) Gwyneth Paltrow is going to be courted by everyone in the fashion industry,” said Deirdre Mendoza, the designer’s publicist.

And it is probably too much to hope for that a best actress or best supporting actress nominee will choose to wear a Monah Li creation.

“All of Europe is offering clothing to them. Your chances of that happening are a little narrower, but I think we would be happy with anyone who’s in the spotlight,” she said.

Bloch said it’s not surprising that attendees of the Grammys and other award ceremonies have worn Li’s gowns, but that the more traditional Oscars might be more of a challenge. “In general, her stuff is more funky,” he said.

Having a store, which she did not have prior to last year’s Oscars, helps. “It gets so much easier, because all the stylists have a place to go and pick stuff,” Li said. “It’s the stylists who pretty much determine who wears what.”

She likely won’t know which, if any, celebrities attending the Oscars has chosen to wear one of her dresses until the night of the ceremony, because stylists often work with their celebrity clients until the very last minute, fitting them with a number of gowns from a variety of designers. In fact, Bloch said that a star may consider as many 100 dresses from various designers.

Li said she is glad to give a free gown to any actress attending the Academy Awards, though she will not court stars with fruit baskets, gifts and free tailoring, the way many designers do.

“I don’t even want to compete with that,” she said. “If my stuff is good enough for somebody to want to wear it, that has to be good enough.”

Li’s road leading up to her run at the Oscars has been an extensive one. It has included formal training from the Higher Teaching Institute Industries, a textile engineering school in Austria; art school, where she studied fashion design under Karl Lagerfeld; and a stint in the mid-1980s painting silk for Trashy Lingerie.

She originally moved to L.A. from Europe in 1984, then returned to Austria in 1986 to further her education in pattern making and sewing and to operate her own store in Vienna. She returned to L.A. in 1989, where she has remained ever since.

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