Family Style created an eponymous, multifaceted food festival and live experiential event, Family Style Festival, that sets out to bridge the gap between food and fashion. Family Style saw the parallels between the consumers that would wait in line for a food pop-up to those that participate in limited-run drop culture in streetwear, and it sparked the idea to merge this into one festival – something they had not seen before. Family Style launched the festival in 2019 in Los Angeles, and in 2022, Family Style produced their third-iteration of the festival.
Family Style brought their goal to life, by introducing out-of-the box collaborations between popular brands/designers with the best restaurants in Los Angeles as well the country and the world. Together, they create one-of-a kind menu items and merchandise that is sold exclusively available at Family Style. Attendees are able to taste bites by world-renowned chefs and purchase merch designed in collaboration with our restaurants and by sought after brands.
Being an independently owned and operated festival, Family Style faces many of the same challenges a small business with big dreams does, like finding the right operating capital, competition from large food festivals and youth culture events, etc. But if Family Style were to closely examine their day-to-day challenges, it would have to be educating two different worlds (culinary and fashion) on their new and unique take on participating in a not-so traditional food festival.
Convincing restaurants to participate in a live event that is NOT backed by a major media outlet is tough. For this, Family Style relied on building their brand to be THE cool place to pop up, and thankfully they’ve found success here, which has resulted in bringing on some of the biggest and best name chefs and restaurants to their line up. Simultaneously, convincing fashion designers and brands to collaborate with restaurants for a limited capsule collection that is not in-season with current drops or fashion calendars.
Family Style at its core is about community and highlighting the melting pot of culture around them, through all challenges and adversity they’ve stayed true to their ethos and consciously made strides to overcome them while continuing to grow the intersection they’ve created all while spotlighting the people within it. This translates to the restaurants, brands, or sponsors and they’ve been able to witness the genuine/strong community that’s been built and they want to be a part of it.
The festival has been the home for exclusive, never before seen bites created by world-class, critically-acclaimed chefs like Nancy Silverton, Jon Yao, Evan Funke, etc., as well as released collaborations with heavy hitting streetwear brands such as Nike, Dickie’s, Tommy Hillfigure and many more.
Family Style has also been able to facilitate long lasting relationships within these collaborations that continue to blur the lines between the two industries post-festival.
Although national brands have been collaborating for years, Family Syle was one of the pioneers for the surge of the food & fashion fusion that pop and street-culture see today.
Since the birth of Family Style, they have witnessed other food based live events follow the blueprint and continue to build along the foundation we’ve created to bridge the food and fashion gap
