He Has Designs on Higher Education : Fashion Consultant Richard Valenza Founded ‘Re-Style L.A.’ to Raise Scholarship Money for Inner-City Students

Aundre Buyard’s South-Central Los Angeles neighborhood, scarred by last year’s rioting, is filled with vacant lots and burned-out buildings.

“You can look at people’s faces and see the struggles, the hard times and the pain,” says the soft-spoken 18-year-old. “It makes me very depressed.”

His escape is a world of paint brushes, drawing pencils and sketch pads.

“It’s a way I can deal with the problems in my environment--the gangs, poverty, drugs,” says Buyard, a Crenshaw High School senior who has lived with his grandparents for 10 years.

“Somewhere down the line, people might see my art and understand that L.A. is not all what you see in papers and magazines--it’s hard, real hard in lots of ways. I want people to understand and help a little more.”

Richard Valenza would like to help a lot more. And his plans center around sequins and runways and cover-girl models.

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Last August, Valenza, a former New Yorker with strong ties to the fashion industry, founded a nonprofit organization to raise money for inner-city students interested in the fine arts, fashion and the performing arts.

He billed his creation “Re-Style L.A.”

So far, 18 students--Buyard, among them--have been promised scholarships. A number of schools--Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, USC, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, and Otis School of Art and Design--have agreed to work with Re-Style L.A.

The next step is a fashion show--a fund-raiser Saturday at the Wiltern Theater, which, if it sells out, will raise almost $200,000 for student scholarships.

The show will include original designs from big names such as Bob Mackie, and TV and movie costume designers.

In addition, fashion-design students are collaborating with designers to create outfits for the event.

(Scholarship winners who specialize in fine arts and the performing arts will work on the production of the show.)

The modeling crew will include Niki Taylor and Beverly Johnson, as well as soap-opera stars and members of the Los Angeles Rams, Raiders and Kings.

Actors Kathy Bates and Edward James Olmos and singer Jody Watley have agreed to speak, and a segment on role models is scheduled to include Olympic medalist-turned-pro boxer Oscar De La Hoya and Mayor Tom Bradley.

Ticket prices range from $30 to $150.

B.U.M. Equipment, a sportswear company, is underwriting the show and is providing advertisements on 200 buses throughout Los Angeles.

Thirteen Bullock’s stores and Nordstrom in West Los Angeles have prominent Re-Style L.A. displays, and Nordstrom is selling Re-Style L.A. T-shirts.

The radio station 92.3 FM “The Beat” is airing public-service announcements and celebrity interviews, and designers including Norma Kamali and Gianni Versace have donated money.

Re-Style L.A. “is making a real impact; I’ve seen nothing like this before,” says Cassandra Roy, Buyard’s college counselor at Crenshaw High.

“We’ve always been blessed with people who donate money, but this is not just money--they are providing mentoring. And to know that people who don’t know you care enough to make sure you get to school means a lot to these students. For a kid who has nothing to suddenly have a full scholarship to college is overwhelming.”

Valenza is president of his own fashion consulting company, Whard Robe, which works with TV- and movie-production companies, outfitting actors and announcers

(The company dressed the announcers at last year’s Olympics, and will do the same at the Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, next year.)

He is in charge of day-to-day operations of Re-Style L.A., and works full time with a team of volunteers from his office behind his Studio City house.

Valenza hopes to award $10,000 to each student, which will be kept in an account by Re-Style L.A. The participating schools, he says, will bill the organization, and students will be reimbursed for supplies and extra fees.

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Valenza says he hasn’t worked out the details of distributing the scholarships, because each school’s tuition varies dramatically.

L.A. Trade-Tech is $350 a year, the fashion institute ranges from $11,000 to $12,000 a year, and tuition and fees for a year at Otis is about $12,500.

USC, whose yearly tuition is $16,200, has agreed to fully meet whatever the scholarship doesn’t cover.

Valenza says most of the students are eligible for other grants, scholarships and loans, and each school has agreed to work with students who need extra aid.

Though the participating schools are supporting the project, some administrators worry about the viability of the scholarships on a long-term basis.

“We are concerned. We hope they have the wherewithal with the funds to continue after one year,” says Roger Workman, president of Otis, where 10 scholarship recipients plan to go in the fall.

“We’ve talked about this till we’re hoarse--what if the students are left high and dry after the first year?” he asks.

“Once students are at Otis, we are committed to keeping them here, but whether we can provide $100,000 a year for the 10 students concerns me. Hopefully Re-Style L.A. will come back and still have a commitment to these students.”

Bonita Mathews, director of academic services for the School of Theater at USC has similar concerns, but is convinced the program will sustain itself after this year.

“I think once people see how the students have benefited, donors will continue to support the project,” she says.

Valenza insists Re-Style L.A. will continue to support students until they get their degrees, though he says the financial help from the organization will probably decrease after the first year.

He hopes to expand the program by 20 students each year, with the bulk of the scholarship money going toward the first school year.

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Aundre Buyard has been accepted at Otis for the fall semester.

“The feeling of going to college makes you feel worth something,” says Buyard, who is the first in his immediate family to go.

“Art is something I can do in my spare time and enjoy it--if I can do it and make a living, I am willing.”

Buyard says he never considered college until his art teacher and college counselor encouraged him. He says he hopes he can be a positive influence on others in his position.

“Of all my neighborhood, I’m the second to get out,” he says. “I’m real close with the real little kids in my neighborhood, and if they see me get out, if they see I’ve made it, they can see they have a way to get out, they can do it, too--it’s something positive. They may not be able to draw, but they have some talent.”

Buyard says that Re-Style L.A. is a step in the right direction, but that not much has changed in his part of town since the rioting.

“If anything is happening to help, it’s rather slow,” he says. “It’s like the fires are still burning there.”

“In Re-Style L.A. people seem interested, they seem to want to help, they are proud of us,” says Keiisha Lytle, 17, a senior at Jordan High School who will attend Otis and hopes to become an architect. “I feel for the first time that people care--a lot of adults turn their back on kids they don’t think will make it. That’s wrong. They should help everyone.

“Nobody complimented me on anything before,” she says.

“It makes me confident that after high school I have a place to go--my future is clear to me now.”

For ticket information about the fund-raiser, call Re-Style L.A. at (818) 985-0594, or Ticketmaster.