Fashion 87 : Two Buildings Vie for Marketing Spotlight : ‘New’ Mart Competes With the ‘Old’ in Downtown L.A.

When clothing wholesaler Les Appel abandoned the California Mart--the pulse of L.A.’s garment industry--to open a showroom in an unslick, nondescript building nearby, he felt the snipes of the crowd.

“People wanted to see me fail here, because I was a maverick,” says the 36-year-old Detroit native.

Appel left his boxlike showroom, among 2,000 within the mammoth Mart complex, for an airy loft at the New Mart building at 127 East 9th Street, an aging brick high-rise growing in repute as a home for hot, contemporary designers.

In a business given to in-crowds, cold wars and wildly varying fortunes, the New Mart represents the latest wave of independent fashion thinkers breaking off on their own.

Purchased by the late Ben Eisenberg and his wife in 1981, the New Mart is being transformed from a downtrodden manufacturing space--with cranky elevators and mismatched linoleum--to a sophisticated setting for selling fashion.

Since Esprit settled in four years ago, dozens of other successful firms moved in, including Leon Max, Jessica McClintock, Bronx, Glenn Williams, Camp Beverly Hills, along with a smattering of sales reps such as Appel. All chose a risky “character building” over the status quo of the Mart.

“Renegades,” designer Gene Ewing calls the bunch. “I wouldn’t think of leaving the California Mart.”

Requests to Return

“Those who’ve moved across the street are the people who’ve succeeded over here first, because we’ve spent the money (helping them),” added Sidney Morse, a general manager of the California Mart, who sees defectors as forfeiting the Mart’s huge promotional machine of fashion shows, publications and organized market weeks. “I get requests all the time from people who want to come back--and if we had more room, a considerable amount would come back.”

But the California Mart is running out of space. The 24-year-old wholesale fashion center--where an estimated 100,000 store buyers annually choose the clothes consumers will buy next season--is 97% full, and it has a waiting list of fashion firms seeking larger showrooms. The squeeze has led the Mart to consider expansion beyond its current 3 million square feet, said Morse.

Indeed, Appel says he was “bursting at the seams” when he left his 906-square-foot California Mart showroom in January for a 3,000-square-foot loft, for which he pays just 20% higher rent. Aside from the economical space, he was drawn to the high ceilings, natural light and low-key atmosphere, which he considered more conducive to displaying and selling clothes.

“This is the future. I knew it in my gut,” said the clothing rep of 11 years.

“That last year at the Mart, I was losing buyers during market because they were not comfortable in the showroom,” Appel added. “At the Mart, it’s like a cattle call.”

Though once worried that buyers wouldn’t find his new showroom, Appel says his net profits will be up more than 20% this year. Down the hall, clothing rep Joyce Milder also reports sales up 20% since moving into the New Mart in August after a decade at the California Mart.

‘Change and Taking Risks’

“This game is about change and taking risks,” said Milder, who wholesales 10 fashion lines in 13 Western states. “This is a decision I made to improve my bottom line.”

Jane August, a dress buyer from Macy’s in San Francisco, says that although she likes the ease of buying at the self-contained California Mart, she thinks “viewing merchandise is a lot easier at the New Mart. The showrooms are three to four times larger, and there’s nothing going on in most of them except great white walls,” she said.

Designer Jessica McClintock saw the New Mart as a chance to build a stronger corporate image. Accustomed to selling her five clothing divisions in showrooms scattered throughout the the California Mart, last summer she centralized her divisions into one huge, fantasy castle of a space designed for her at the New Mart.

“The whole world of retail and image is changing, and in order to build a strong company, you have to make a statement. It’s difficult to do that in a small space,” said the San Francisco designer of romantic, feminine dresses.

Leon Max will soon open a futuristic “metal sculpture” of a showroom at the New Mart, sinking $500,000 into the 6,000-square-foot room.

“I wanted a very interesting architectural environment for the clothes,” said Max, who calls “atrocious” the low ceilings and “office-building” look of the California Mart.

“Ultimately it’s not that important where we are--whether we’re at the Mart or somewhere in the vicinity,” said the L.A.-based sportswear maker. “At the Mart, they’ve taken a posture that they’re the supreme ringmasters of the fashion industry in Los Angeles.”

“The California Mart is unequivocally the center of the fashion industry, bar none,” counters Morse.

New Mart owner Joyce Eisenberg, whose husband, Ben, died one year ago, says she doesn’t like to compare her 300,000-square-foot building to the giant across the street. Her building features about 40 clothing lines; the California Mart has 10,000. Eisenberg sums up the David-and-Goliath competition with: “They’re big, but we’re special.”

It was her husband’s dream to turn what was “a very messy building”--a circa 1928 historical landmark--into a viable clothing mart. The process is 65% complete, as Eisenberg lets leases expire on manufacturing and shipping areas. She’s made sure halls are frequently painted and floors resurfaced.

In an unusual business arrangement, net profits from all New Mart rents go to charity through a Ben B. & Joyce E. Eisenberg Foundation. Though sandboxes, scarecrows and Ping-Pong tables gave early New Mart showrooms a down-home touch, a high-tech tone arrived the day Esprit leased 16,000 square feet here in 1983.

Doug Tompkins, Esprit’s chief executive officer, chose the unknown building because it was “a cheaper buy, by 50%” than his California Mart digs, and it allowed for a “cool professional work space for serious buyers,” he said. Lee Rosenberg, Esprit’s marketing director at that time, said that the vast space created a showcase for Esprit’s upbeat sportswear.

Eisenberg says her building is most suited to established firms that sell by appointment only. Her building does not attract browsers: “When people come here, they come to buy, not to shop,” she said.

Axis, an L.A.-based high-fashion sportswear firm, for example, has corporate offices at the New Mart, but keeps two small showrooms at the California Mart, where the woman’s division relies heavily on walk-by traffic, said Axis President Martin Weening.

Similarly, Jeff Stein, founder of Camp Beverly Hills, says locating in the New Mart was “a trade-off” for him. When he moved in 18 months ago, he gained a “big, funky” room suited to the Camp’s offbeat image, but he lost the stream of buyers who just “cruise” the Mart for ideas.

Gene Ewing, designer of contemporary women’s sportswear, wouldn’t risk such a move. She’s kept a showroom at the California Mart for 14 years and is tripling her space there. “People know I’ve been at the Mart all this time. Why should I move across the street and confuse them?”

Ewing considers the New Mart movement typical of L.A.’s incohesive fashion industry.

“It’s difficult here to be organized in the dignified way that 7th Avenue is--with the professionalism they (New York designers) approach things with,” she said. “I would wish that for California.”

But as designer McClintock noted: “You’ve got a lot of strong individualists in L.A. None of us is afraid to get out and do our own thing.”