Slouching Toward SEQUINS: Libertine designer Johnson Hartig, the technicolor Joan Didion of L.A. fashion, sums up the secret to his success: 'No rules! No rules!'

Twenty-one years ago, in a three-bedroom apartment in L.A.'s not-yet-trendy Korea-town, an aspiring actor began decorating shirts he had snagged on the cheap. To entertain himself he added random seams [...]