Masks are high fashion for LA designer

LOS ANGELES - As we are all wearing a mask now, if not on the coronavirus front lines, how fashionable is yours?

A New York fashion blogger asks if the fashion mask is the new norm? New Style Mode cites L.A. designer Merlin Castell and his high fashion line at New York Fashion Week last fall. 

Was he ahead of his time with masks and matching fashion?

Castell showed in the fall of 2019 at “New York Fashion Week powered by Art Hearts.”  The pandemic canceled L.A. fashion week in March. Castell showed a line he called villains in New York. He was planning to complete the line and show heroes in Los Angeles. 

Now he’s designing masks for health and safety given the coronavirus pandemic. They are much more protective in nature yet still designer and matching his fashions.

As many designers are donating masks during this pandemic, Castell is donating masks to match a police officer's uniform. He’s even asking officers to bring in an old uniform in which he’ll cut the material off a pant leg or a sleeve to make a matching mask. He says that keeps his sewers in business as they sew from their homes.