Judging by last season’s show and this season’s buzz, two things will be in the spotlight when L.A.’s Fashion Week opens today: jeans and skin.

Los Angeles appears to have wrapped up the market on both.

“L.A. Fashion Week seems to be more casual than New York Fashion Week,” said Astride Howell, an attorney who represents several fashion designers. “L.A. has made jeans acceptable for regular wear, even in the workplace.”

Irreverence hit high gear at last season’s fashion blitz as denim brands played a larger role. Rock ’n’ roll attitude and Hollywood glitz come with denim, of course, as does mass-market accessibility.

Patty Handschiegel, editor of StyleDiary.net, said the bawdiness is part of the experience, and it gives a local flavor to the shows. “I always tell everybody, ‘New York is the older sister, Chicago is the middle child, and L.A. is the bratty little sister that gets away with everything,’” she said. “I don’t find that offensive. That is just L.A.”

With its billfold-busting jeans, Rock & Republic Enterprises was almost universally judged to have hit it out of the park at last season’s Fashion Week.

For the finale, a model strutted down the runway in a denim-topped wedding dress and high heels. “When you see that, you say, ‘Wow, they have really pushed the envelope,” said Andrea Bernholtz, president of Los Angeles-based Rock & Republic.

After initial hesitancy, event organizers 7th on Sixth and Smashbox Studios have accepted denim brands into the local fashion show fold. And when the event starts this week, a new feature highlights that acceptance: Denim brands will have an evening to themselves on Tuesday.

“It is definitely a growing segment, and it doesn’t seem to be going away,” said Fern Mallis, executive director of 7th on Sixth. “We resisted it at the very beginning because we thought to get a Fashion Week established, we needed to have designer names and designers that people could relate to.”

But Fashion Week couldn’t avoid the influential local jean market. Premium denim has taken off since the current version of the event began here three years ago. Despite grumbling that the premium jeans bubble could burst, companies keep jumping into the sector, and suitable alternatives to expensive denim haven’t caught on.

“L.A. is the premiere market for premium denim,” said Ali Fatourechi, co-owner and creative director of L.A.-based Genetic Denim. “Per square inch in someone’s closet, they probably have more denim than anything else.”

After all, Rock & Republic’s revenues grew 500 percent last year. Commerce-based Blue Holdings Inc., which has three brands showing at Fashion Week, expects to rack up $60 million to $70 million this year, compared to under $37 million last year. And it is estimated that over 1,000 other brands are vying to get a piece of the pricey denim market.

With all the competition, runway shows are a way for denim companies to stand out from their peers, especially by capturing the lens of magazine, newspaper and television cameras. Bernholtz, for example, said pictures of the denim wedding dress taken in L.A. ran in publications all over the world.