DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Though they may not captured the same attention as Fashion Week affairs by BOXeight or CoLA, California Market Center kept a runway busy this past weekend, putting on three days of shows. Being worn down the runway were designs carried by showrooms in the complex, with each show focused on a different section of the building.

Friday and Saturday nights, produced by Who's Next, What's Next Fashion, focused on Women's and Men's Contemporary, and included designs by Cynthia Steffe, French Connection, La Fine, A Rock Amor, i.o.d. and nappi

Deborah Levine, Public Relations and Marketing Manager for California Market Center, says that the shows are a chance for buyers to have some fun on their trip to the market. "That's really what the runway shows do, is provide them a little bit of fun and excitement right on-site before they go out to dinner or back to their hotel rooms."

The exhibitions also allow buyers to see products in a different light than they might in the showrooms. "As beautiful as things look in a showroom, they look even better on a runway," Levine notes.

Levine was excited to see other fashion week shows like those put on by BOXeight and CoLA cluster around the dates for the Fall Market Week. "At the CMC we've been in touch with all the other shows, and there's great camaraderie between us. The funny thing is that none of us really realized the other was doing shows until all of our press releases started coming out."

"Now that we know that we've all been doing shows, we're really interested in working together in the future and pooling our resources and getting everybody on-board to stagger show times and really make it easy for press and buyers and other people in the industry to get from show to show."