{"id":463223,"date":"2026-09-14T08:54:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T08:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/463223\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T08:54:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T08:54:41","slug":"what-makes-san-diego-cool-design-week-has-a-six-day-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/463223\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes San Diego cool? Design Week has a six-day answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>Design fans want locals to know \u201cabout what San Diego has to offer\u201d in its spaces, fashion, multimedia and more. (Photo courtesy of San Diego Design Week)<\/p>\n

Walk into a swanky hotel lobby and you feel it before you can explain it. Put on an outfit that makes you stand taller. Step into a space that helps you breathe easier.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eric Weiss, president of the nonprofit Design Forward Alliance<\/a>, has been asked to define design more times than he can count. He always lands on the same answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesign is what makes everything cool,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n

The cool factor will be on display across San Diego County starting Tuesday as San Diego Design Week<\/a> returns for its sixth year with about 75 tours, talks, workshops and showcases organized by the DFA.<\/p>\n

Each day will focus on a different design theme \u2014 multimedia, digital, spaces, fashion or health and well-being \u2014 with programming at an anchor location. The broader design community also will host events throughout the county through Sept. 20.<\/p>\n

Weiss said typical attendance is usually 7,000 over the course of the week, drawn from design students, tech workers, fashion enthusiasts and what organizers call the \u201cdesign curious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Olga Cecilia Sanchez exhibiting during World Design Capital San Diego Tijuana 2024. (Photo courtesy of Olga Cecilia Sanchez) <\/p>\n

This year marks the first time fashion and costume design will have its own dedicated track at Design Week, organized by board member Olga Cecilia Sanchez, a retail buyer, business developer and the designer behind the label \u201cEclectique Mode.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The main fashion track is Sept. 17, at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla, with an exhibit featuring work by local designers and students from Palomar College and Mesa College, the last two schools in San Diego County with fashion design and merchandising programs.<\/p>\n

Rather than a traditional runway show, Sanchez built the day around exhibits where designers can explain their process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be able to showcase the designer or the students, and they can talk about their work and inspiration behind it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The day also includes discussions on Isaac Mizrahi, a preview of the unreleased documentary about English fashion designer Zandra Rhodes and a Dazzle Lab, where attendees can bring blank items to zhuzh with rhinestones and stencils. <\/p>\n

Leading up to the MCASD event, Sanchez arranged a rare, ticketed tour of the San Diego History Center\u2019s clothing archive in Balboa Park, which holds more than 77,000 items, including pieces from Rhodes and Bob Mackie. It is not normally open to the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis tour is an exciting way to build a bridge between San Diego\u2019s fashion history and what is happening in the present,\u201d Sanchez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other fashion track activities include free tours of the La Jolla Playhouse costume department and an Uptown sewing collective.<\/p>\n

Sanchez said the goal is to create experiences that connect students, designers and the larger community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to create memories like I have from when I was in fashion school,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to give back to the amazing community that supported me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Design Week\u2019s reach extends into San Diego\u2019s hospitality scene through Jennifer Findley, an art consultant for Oram Hotels<\/a>, which owns One Ameria Plaza and The Guild and Granger hotels downtown. Findley is a San Diego native and founder of JFiN Collective<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my goals is to see what I can do to showcase and really toot my little horn, as much as I can, about what San Diego has to offer,\u201d Findley said.<\/p>\n

Findley has spent the past several years helping build an art and design identity for the hotels that pays homage to San Diego culture, including an artist-in-residence collaboration with UC San Diego and two exhibitions featuring regional artists.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>\u201cThe Riparium,\u201d a sculptural eucalyptus-branch gateway by local artist Roman de Salvo, during a walking tour of San Diego at Ruocco Park. (Photo courtesy of San Diego Design Week) <\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is that the design, art and hospitality work together to create an environment that feels very uplifting, but also authentic to the community,\u201d Findley said.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 19, The Guild and JFiN Collective will host \u201cThe Art of Design<\/a>,\u201d an evening reception and exhibition in a building whose history is itself part of the design story. The former Army-Navy YMCA\u2019s recently reimagined interiors preserve the building\u2019s historic architecture while incorporating what\u2019s relevant today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just a party,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s thinking about how every element, from the chair to the cocktail glass, to the food, to the plate, to the fashion that\u2019s worn that night, comes together to create a perfect work of art. Everything connects so everything is intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Findley sees Design Week as a way for San Diegans to recognize the creativity already happening around them.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Diego is not a second city. It\u2019s a place that has its own narrative, its own story to tell, its own future and that future is pretty bright,\u201d Findley said.<\/p>\n

Weiss said the payoff comes when the doors finally open after a year of planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s six days, it\u2019s all over the city, it\u2019s all over the county.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the most rewarding part, Weiss said, is what happens when people from different corners of the creative community come together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all in the same space, same principles, but to see them applied in totally different domains. It gives me the chills,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A schedule of Design Week events, most of which are free, is available at: www.sddesignweek.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Design fans want locals to know \u201cabout what San Diego has to offer\u201d in its spaces, fashion, multimedia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1853,2308,15139,82430,67083,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-463223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-architecture","tag-art","tag-fashion-designer","tag-museum-of-contemporary-art-san-diego","tag-public-spaces","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}