A decades-long attempt by the local apparel industry to create one grand showcase event each year to highlight L.A. designers is getting closer to a reality.

Several different groups are quietly plotting ways to organize a Los Angeles Fashion Week next spring that would highlight the region’s growing role as a leader in the fashion world. The weeklong festivities, as currently envisioned, could also serve as a catalyst for the local industry’s growth and for overseas’ demand for L.A.-designed fashions.

Various scenarios are being proposed, from a trade show to a consumer show to a press show.

As many as 100 of L.A.’s 500 design houses and apparel manufacturers are expected to participate. Most likely it would be held the week after the Academy Awards, to take advantage of all the press in town.

But already there is disagreement over where it should be held.

Some organizers are rooting for downtown Los Angeles, others for Hollywood and others for the Westside.

People like Sheri Mobley, head of Mobley Marketing Communications, would like to see the event held in Hollywood.

“My group has been working on this for more than a year,” said Mobley, who last year formed Stage Right Productions LLC, a for-profit marketing firm to promote the California fashion industry via trade shows.

They feel downtown Los Angeles home to the CaliforniaMart and the New Mart, where manufacturers’ showrooms are located is faded and not trendy.

But another group, headed by British events producer Lynne Franks, is pushing for downtown Los Angeles. And Franks has some clout, having organized London Fashion Week in the early 1980s. She is now head of GlobalFusion, a local marketing firm.

“The whole downtown area has come back in favor as a re-energized part of town,” said Coralie Langston-Jones, vice president of media relations for GlobalFusion, speaking for Franks who is currently in England.

Franks has quietly been working on organizing a fashion week for the past few years.