Bobby Love is an American fashion designer known primarily for creating designs in the genre known as fantasy couture. Love has identified

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

, Alphonse Mucha, and the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

master Erté as major inspirations for his style, and the mechanical parrots which appear in his sets are named "Erté" in his honor.

Biography

Love was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Singapore before moving to the United States to enroll as a student at

Chapman University Chapman University is a private research university in Orange, California. It encompasses ten schools and colleges, including Fowler School of Engineering, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Fowler School of Law, and Schmid College of Scie ...

, a private university in

Orange, California Orange is a city located in North Orange County, California. It is approximately north of the county seat, Santa Ana, California, Santa Ana. Orange is unusual in this region because many of the homes in its Old Town District were built before ...

, at the age of 16. Following this, he earned two master's degrees— one in business administration and another in psychology— from the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. His first employment was as a

graveyard shift The shift plan, rota or roster (esp. British) is the central component of a shift schedule in shift work. The schedule includes considerations of shift overlap, shift change times and alignment with the clock, vacation, training, shift differenti ...

worker at a psychiatric hospital, a job he held for three years. Love began sketching fashion designs at 14, and became involved in the fashion industry of

Hollywood, California Hollywood is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios, such as Columbia Pictures, ...

after moving there at the age of 20. His designs are usually presented as "suites" that are recorded in professional photographs— these are vignettes including head dresses, costumes, and jewelry that derive from a specific fantasy theme supported by set backgrounds, props, flamboyant costumes, and sometimes other models as well as Mr. Love himself. Love has worn these costumes at fantasy-themed events on the American West Coast, including the Edwardian Ball, Vampire Ball, Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball, and the Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California, and has changed costumes and props multiple times during some of them. He assembles between 30 and 40 costume suites per year. His works were featured in the 2016 ''Avant Garde Magazine'' runway show, the 2016 and 2018 Los Angeles Fashion Week and Metropolitan Fashion Week events held in Los Angeles, California, and he was given a "Certificate of Recognition" by the mayor of the City of Los Angeles,

Eric Garcetti Eric Michael Garcetti (born February 4, 1971) is an American politician who served as the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles from 2013 until 2022. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was first elected in the 2013 Los An ...

, for his contribution to fashion industry at the 2018 event. He has appeared twice on the cover of ''AVANT GARDE Magazine'', with the magazine's November 2018 issue being dedicated to him as a "special designer". Love engages as a designer only as a hobby, and derives no income from it. He curates all of his designs in a private collection with the intent of donating it to American art museums to make them accessible to future designers and artists.

Gallery

File:BobbyLoveFashion2-002 Fantasy Couture.jpg File:BobbyLoveFashion3-002 Fantasy Couture.jpg File:BobbyLoveFashion4-002 Fantasy Couture.jpg

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Love, Bobby American fashion designers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people