Browse the Boutique Beat for the Unusual and Hard-to-Find

Two new Los Angeles boutiques have sprung up with more than just clothes on the racks.

Alley, a gray stucco hideaway behind Melrose Avenue, combines jewelry, clothing, paintings, photographs.

“If someone walks in with something so wonderful, we’ll carry it,” says Sheila Speer, co-owner with John Warner Williams.

The only catch at the Alley is that everything must be made by Californians. Speer, former store manager of the Holly’s Harp boutique, has long believed California designers should have a forum. She says the West Coast calls for its own manner of dress: lightweight and in proportion to local architecture.

“Our buildings are low, soft and white,” Speer says. “I dress California style, so I can walk down our streets and not be bigger than the buildings.”

Speer and Williams rented their own low, 1,000-square-foot bungalow on an alley behind Melrose Avenue this past fall, when a furniture showroom moved out.

Alley opened in early December.

With no street entrance to the store, shoppers are those who persevere down the alley off La Cienega Boulevard and Melrose. Speer says she never wanted street traffic: “We want people to seek us out.”

Speer forgoes the “sweat shirt and poncho” school of California design, featuring dressy sportswear and evening wear by 15 California designers, including Harriet Selwyn, Kevan Hall, Batoon and Tjara. Prices range from a $10 leather Western tie to a $7,500 Carole Little sable coat.

Co-owner Williams, an actor and former art gallery manager, is the art link in the partnership and has obtained paintings for the shop from California artists Billy Al Bengston, Laddie John Dill, Peter Alexander, Joe Goode and others. But let’s not be rigid. Alley features an occasional out-of-state talent.

At the moment, Speer says she simply can’t do without the silicone jewelry of New York artist Carol Motty.

Lerner/Wilder/LaBrea

The biggest surprise at the new Lerner/Wilder/LaBrea boutique is that there are no flowers inside.

Given co-owner Cheryl Lerner’s background--she had a custom flower-arranging business for five years--one would expect blooms along with the handmade sweaters, jewelry, pottery, Art Deco glass and one-of-a-kind scarfs housed within the 400-square-foot La Brea Avenue storefront.

Partners Lerner and Jo Wilder sell “only things that we love. If we have to think about anything for too long, it’s not for us,” says Wilder, an actress and former Democratic campaign worker, who met Lerner while buying flowers at her old shop.

Labor Day weekend, the two decided to translate their shared love of design into an eclectic boutique.

They opened in November, after contacting craftsmen and designers. A friend in New York introduced them to designer Kazuko Oshima, whose beaded and metallic-threaded scarfs are carried in the shop.

Prices at the boutique range from $5 for potpourri to $1,500 for one of Oshima’s scarfs.

“We like things with a primitive quality that end up looking elegant,” Wilder says.

“The simplest things,” Lerner adds, “can look prettiest.”