KCETLink teams up with Otis College to examine fashion and creative industries in L.A.

With the new partnership of KCETLink and Otis College of Art and Design (OCAD), a project entitled Artbound has emerged exploring Southern California, as well as the contributing factors of how the fashion industry impacts the Los Angeles county.

“We began three and a half years ago, and its been growing,” said Juan Devis, Senior Vice President of KCETLink. Devis also handles content, development and production of the company. “The ultimate goal is to create a new space of cultural journalism, looking through a prism of the 11 counties of our region.”

The online vignettes document how economic and artistic forces influence L.A. With a SoCal focus, KCETLink looked to partner with OCAD in order to publish a series of multimedia installments that delve into how creative contributors impact the region. These include all types of industries from fashion to digital media and arts.

“One in seven jobs is directly implicated with a creative industry--from fashion to architecture,” said Devis. The partnership with OCAD, which has a massive fashion department teamed up with KCETLink helping to analyze the impact. According to the annual “Otis Report on the Creative Economy,” the L.A. region creative industry output nearly 140 billion dollars. Also, stated in the report: the largest three creative industries in the L.A. region include entertainment, fashion, and publishing. The results for 2014 were released Mar. 11. An advanced screening of the special was located at the Premiere House at Regal L.A. LIVE Stadium 14 in downtown L.A.

The annual “Otis Report on the Creative Economy” measures trends of these fields, and puts them into categories. The report, orchestrated by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation observes the overall role in the effect of these business from an economic view.

“Every year for the last seven years, [OCAD] has been looking at the impact of creative contributors to the region,” said Devis.

Artbound examines fashion and creative industry impacts on Los Angeles

In order to put this information to use, Artbound was created. Dr. Kerry Walk, Interim President at OCAD, said, “This thought-provoking series will tell the stories inside the creative economy, presenting a behind-the-scenes look at the professionals and innovators who drive cultural enrichment and economic growth.”

Specifically within the fashion aspect of the creative industry, KCETLink and OCAD are interested in finding out what the story is behind all of the gross product success. For instance, Devis brings up with the inner workings of denim being such a big part of L.A.’s economy.

“Denim is a huge industry here--I think it was about an 18 dollar billion industry last year,” said Devis. He stated that KCET decided to partner with OTIS to work on reporting on the role the fashion industry has on the economy.

“We took a look into denim and concentrated on more D-I-Y manufacturers that have pumped up in the last half a decade in SoCal,” said Davis. He stated that denim plays a big role in such a surprising way, because “it’s not fashion that you normally pay so much attention to.”

With the updated report, business are able to see and assess which creative industries are growing and which are at a standstill for the L.A. region.