FASHION : Montana Avenue: Chic and Close in Santa Monica
There is a four-alarm fashion-trend alert on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. The street that entered the ‘80s as a sleepy little neighborhood address--filled with hardware stores, gas stations and corner grocers--will go into the ‘90s as an oh-so-chic shopping district.
Not that you’d notice, at first.
Montana Avenue still looks a lot like it has for years, with one- and two-story buildings shaded by leafy trees. Locals still gather at the Shell station to catch up on the gossip, as if life were a Norman Rockwell painting. And the busiest time of the day is lunch time, when the nursery school lets out and the sidewalks fill with mothers and their toddling broods.
But Saturday afternoons are another story.
The street then becomes a parade ground for grown-up shoppers and browsers who aren’t afraid to spend their money but want to do so in their own back yard or some place nearly as informal.
Far from the city skyscrapers, Montana Avenue may not look like an area ripe for an urban uprising. But behind the dozens of newly renovated storefronts beats the heart of the revolution.
Starting at Montana Avenue and 7th Street and extending north to 17th, the choices are impressive. There is Savannah, a women’s clothing shop near 7th, where $1,000-Nancy Heller cashmere sweaters, $680-Ronaldus Shamask dresses and $700-Manolo Blahnik boots are sold.
Five years ago, Susan Stone opened the store after she perceived Santa Monica as virgin territory for high-priced, couture-quality clothing. “There wasn’t anything else on the Westside. It was fashion’s Death Valley,” she recalls.
Stone’s merchandising philosophy is one that prevails up and down the avenue. Her store, like most others, has a focused selection of merchandise. The shop is filled with clean-line fashions, bereft of excessive ornamentation. This sort of Euro-style simplicity doesn’t come cheap. Suits, the mainstay of Savannah’s business, are priced from $850 to $1,900.
At Kathryn Post, next door, technology and craftsmanship have been combined to create a new breed of jewelry--replicas of famous designs, made with real gold and silver, but with synthetic stones. The results are necklaces, bracelets and rings inspired by the biggest names in the real-gem business, at one-tenth the price.
Along with designs by Post that look like recreations of the crown jewels, Cathy Marriott, the store’s owner, carries a host of other styles. There are new takes on African tribal jewelry and modern, amorphous pieces with antique finishes and semiprecious stones. For out-and-out glitzy splendor, there are huge, lightweight, brilliantly colored, hand-set pave crystal pieces.
Heading northeast on Montana, the heavy shopping action picks up again around 11th Street and radiates with charge-card meltdown possibilities for the next six blocks. It’s a little bit of retail heaven.
Every trend is represented--Southwestern furnishings, Mexican antiques, English pine furniture, French lingerie and the latest from the California apparel designers. There are even shops that specialize in fibers, such as the Cottonwares store and Three Bags Full for handmade woolens.
The family atmosphere that pervades the street has not been lost on the merchants. There are many children’s stores, including two that are unique--Sara For Kids and Lavender’s Blue.
Sara For Kids is the newborn creation of Sara Schifrin, owner of Sara, the long-established Montana store for women’s wear. Opened two weeks ago, the childrens’ store is complete with fenced-in entertainment pit for wayward little ones, as well as an unusual assortment of ethnic-print children’s clothes at surprisingly reasonable prices.
Lavender’s Blue specializes in one-of-a-kind wear. Dresses in hand-smocked Liberty of London fabrics start at $195; fringed jackets reworked from old chenille bedspreads go for $60 and up.
The neighborhood is quite able to support the number and variety of specialty stores that are filling the street. Most retailers say their customers come from this well-heeled community and the surrounding enclaves of Brentwood and the Pacific Palisades. They also say that they seldom, if ever, advertise. Yet, word has spread to the San Fernando Valley and the southern beach communities.
People from Encino and Redondo Beach are now shopping in the area. But first they park their cars on residential side streets off Montana Avenue, in front of the houses that mega-yups are buying for as much as a cool $1 million.
The parking is causing some trouble in shoppers’ paradise. Locals are complaining to the City Council that store owners must provide more parking for customers. So far, the city’s strongest visible response has been to install Montana Avenue parking meters where there used to be none, which only encourages shoppers to find free spaces on the side streets.
Despite this problem, store owner Allen Schwartz, a native New Yorker with two A. B. S stores (one for men, one for women) on Montana, says he’s happy with the location.
“I don’t think there was a community in Southern California where people walked with their children. Everybody walks on Montana,” he says.
The social gathering that takes place at his Optical Designs for eye wear is the best part of being a merchant on Montana Avenue, says shop owner Rick Hogan.
Michelle Matasavage, who owns Soho on Montana, grew up in Santa Monica. In April, she opened her store in her old stomping grounds. She carries New York and California designers, such as Michele Lamy, Tina Hagen and Weston Wear.
“My schoolmates still live in the neighborhood. It’s like a high-school reunion for me every other day,” she says.
Matasavage has fond memories of the way Montana Avenue used to be. “It was a sleepy little street with drug stores that would give you the wrong change--in your favor,” she says. “Now it’s a chic sleepy little street.”
Guide to Montana Avenue
Kathryn Post, 704 Montana Ave., (213) 451-3407. Jewelry designs by Kathryn Post, Luna Felix, David Booz, Faith Porter, Richard Kimball, Loree Rodkin, Barbara Groeger and Gloria del Piano. $21-$11,000.
Savannah, 706 Montana Ave. (213) 458-2095. European lines, Callagan (by Romeo Gigli), Jill Sander, Dolce & Gabbana, Manolo Blahnik, and American designer, Ronaldus Shamask. Accessories start at $100, apparel up to $2,000.
Lavender’s Blue, 1107 Montana Ave., (213) 458-2110. Custom children’s clothes from new and antique fabrics, christening gowns, antique costumes and whimsical one-of-a-kind pieces from Laguna Beach line KoKo Nuts. $55-$1,500.
Optical Designs, 1235 Montana Ave., (213) 393-4322. Eye wear from Alain Mikli, Jean Paul Gaultier, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, L. A. Eyeworks, Oliver Peeples, Gail Spence and Lunetta Bada. $89-$1,000.
Sara For Kids, 800 14th St. (14th Street and Montana Avenue), (213) 451-1494. Almost exclusively private label. $16-$72.
A. B. S. Men, 1528 Montana Ave., (213) 393-4089. Only A. B. S. by Allen Schwartz clothing is carried. Sueded silk bomber jackets, white cotton pique evening shirts with embroidered plackets, wool jackets in loden green with black velvet collars. $175-$600.
A. B. S. California, 1533 Montana Ave., (213) 393-8770. Only A. B. S. women’s wear is carried. Sheer leopard print dresses, white bolero jackets with fringed sleeves, long, fitted wool jackets with velvet collars, silk coats. $125-$420.
Soho on Montana, 1609-A Montana Ave., (213) 461-8050. Stanley Gretzinger, Putumayo, Weston Wear, Michele Lamy, Tina Hagen. $3.50-$600.
