COVER STORY : ‘In the Valley, you can see what the rest of the country really wants.’ : Feel like you’re being watched? You may be right. For designers who have forsaken Downtown, style-watching is part of the job.
A team of fashion designers hang out at the mall, watching the Valley girls go by, trying to gauge what the masses are really wearing.
Another designer is entertained by high-con cept trends that spring to life here, such as the wearing of socks with pumps. Valley women sported that look years before Italian designer Gianni Versace made it fashionable on a European runway.
“In the Valley, you can see what the rest of the country really wants,” says Serge Shakians, who designs and manufactures contemporary sportswear.
Fashion designers who choose to live and work in the San Fernando Valley appreciate the area’s style and influence on trends while revering a more relaxed quality of life at work and home. And it seems that a small but growing number are choosing to set up their sewing machines here.
“More and more designers are moving out of the Downtown area,” says Thadine Haner, a sales manager at Guilford Mills, a fabric mill based in Greensboro, N.C. Haner says the more convenient commutes, safer environs--compared to dicier districts Downtown--and cheaper rents are only part of the attraction. “There’s a real design community out there.”
Leslie Niskar, a designer for T.T. Marr who lives and works in Studio City, agrees.
“I love this end of the Valley, because it’s so kick back. There are a lot of artistic people who gravitate to this area. And because it’s so centrally located, stores can come from the Westside and even from the other side of the Valley and not think of it as a big deal,” she says.
Niskar, a former law student turned fashion designer, enjoys having her office close to home and the friendships she has developed with Valley store owners because she lives and works near them. Niskar, who grew up in Tarzana, has separate office and warehouse space for her T.T. Mar line of dresses and children’s wear.
Roomy silhouettes accented with whimsical buttons and trim add charm to her designs, which average between $120 to $150 for a dress. A limited-edition approach to manufacturing helps ensure wearers won’t look like every other fashion plate on Ventura Boulevard. (Niskar cuts about 150 dresses from a single print as opposed to 600, a typical number for a larger-volume manufacturer.) Though most of her rayon fabrics are printed and imported from overseas, Niskar gets her inspiration from old picture books and antique fabrics.
Her designs are featured at department stores such as Nordstrom and specialty boutiques including Leslie in Studio City and Prive in the Sherman Oaks Galleria. In the three years she has been designing and manufacturing T.T. Mar, she has gone from shipping 15 to 1,500 garments a month, Niskar says.
Maggie Barry and Ty Moore, whose Van Buren line has been based in North Hollywood for seven years, appreciate the easy commutes to their separate Sherman Oaks residences and, more importantly, the flexible work schedules.
“We can burn the midnight oil here and not have to worry about our safety,” Barry says. In Downtown Los Angeles, Barry says she would try to clear out by 3 p.m. to avoid intense traffic, and be forced to leave by 6 p.m. to ensure her personal safety.
Alternative urban street wear sums up the look of Van Buren, with a fall line of A-line miniskirts, leather jackets and other pieces laden with such exotic trim as faux Mongolian lamb fur in such bold shades as bottle green. Nordstrom and Bullock’s are just two of the stores that carry the collection, which sells for between $45, for a top, and $425, for a jacket.
The pair also credit the Valley for providing style-watching opportunities. Moore likes walking around The Exchange, a Glendale-area shopping enclave and movie theater complex, so that he can observe street wear and browse the boutiques for ideas. They also peruse the many thrift stores that line Magnolia and Van Nuys boulevards, often bumping into fashion stylists from over the hill who are doing the same.
Valley women are always on the cutting edge of fashion, Barry says, and she appreciates the opportunity to observe the phenomenon firsthand.
“A lot of trends originate here, and some never left and are back again, like the Farrah (Fawcett) hairstyle,” says Barry, who also noticed the Versace pumps-with-socks trend here years before the designer made it internationally trendy.
“You just never know where your experimentation is going to come from,” says Barry of the source of any fashion trend. “When people are hooking up their looks, it’s an evolution. Valley women are always in development, and that creates a style and, eventually in some cases, a trend.”
Geary Rourke, who occasionally breakfasts with fellow Valley designers, has a line of better career wear and evening creations in stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, I. Magnin and Neiman Marcus.
The North Hollywood designer says the influx of a number of designers--and the caliber of the newcomers--is making business easier to conduct as well. Now when fabric salespeople come to the Valley, it’s easier for them to piggyback appointments because there are more designers and manufacturers here to see.
Though the Valley may be miles from killer waves, designer/pro surfer Ricky Schaffer bases his Hardwear apparel operation in Woodland Hills. The line of surfing and snowboarding attire, which the designer describes as “ ‘90s function gear with ‘60s styling,” has been outfitting surfer types for two years. The overall look of the garments is industrial: Heavy-duty zippers, buttons, rivets and repairman-style logos add to their working-class appearance.
The Hardwear collection ranges from $16 for a T-shirt to $200 for a heavy-duty snowboard jacket. The line is available at Green Sector in Tarzana, IG Performance in Agoura Hills and Simi Valley and Oceanview in Montrose.
The main reason Schaffer operates out of the Valley is to accommodate family members who live here, many of whom work in the business. Schaffer, who lives in Woodland Hills, likes to involve neighborhood kids in research and development.
“They wear the clothes just like I do, so we can work out any problems and there won’t be any complaints,” he says. Schaffer may be doing something right--he sold 15 jackets during his first trade show two years ago; at the last one he moved about 5,000.
Dorit, a line of handmade accessories in Tarzana, is another Valley-based family business. Eric Berger and his wife, Dorit, have been making drawstring handbags and other accessories here since they started their business in 1992.
Among their biggest-selling items are jacket and dress clips, which, like the handbags, are made of imported French and Italian silk, in Jacquard, brocade and chiffon textures. The duo has added vests to their line as well. Prices for the line, sold at Two Sisters in Toluca Lake, Why Not? in Agoura Hills and Pretty as You in Studio City, among others, range from $12 for a clip to $99 for an elaborate bag.
The Bergers look to Europe for supplies and trends but hone in on Valley fashion to ground their styles and guard against what may be too avant-garde for American tastes. Observing style and working in the Valley helps them to maintain a balance after viewing sometimes outlandish trends on biannual trips to Milan and Paris.
“We like to go out to the malls, look at the people and see what kind of dress clips will look good with what they are really wearing, not just what we see in magazines,” Eric Berger says.
For Phyllis Maxx, centering her design business in the Valley had more to do with spotting an ideal space to house her creations. The designer, who lives in Woodland Hills, says she fell in love with an old refurbished house in Tarzana conveniently situated on Ventura Boulevard.
“I wanted a place that was truly unique, not something in a mall, and this was the perfect spot,” says Maxx, who converted the home into a 1,000-square-foot boutique. Her store features 90% of her own creations--woven contemporary sportswear in rayon, cotton and silk--but also houses imported knitwear. Prices range from $18 for a T-shirt to $200 for a two-piece outfit. She estimates that about 20% of her customer base ventures in from the Westside.
The 6-year-old Actionwear line of contemporary sportswear is designed and manufactured in a 20,000-square-foot compound in Pacoima, giving co-designers Helene Nelson and Serge Shakians excellent views of the Hansen Dam Golf Course. Available at Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Cachet boutiques, the fall collection features a variety of velvet patchwork patterns and embroidered rayon with a suede feel. Primitive motifs prevail in a combination of trim and loose silhouettes, in earthy shades of wheat and sienna, among others. Prices range from $38 for a simple top to $140 for a jacket.
Shakians, a Northridge resident, says he’s content in his Valley corporate and residential digs.
“Not only does it beat the traffic grind into Downtown L.A.,” he says, “but we feel safer here.”
Like other designers, Shakians and Nelson concede that it is more difficult to keep up with what the buyers are selling retailers inside the Downtown showrooms. But they say that being able to keep up with what people really wear makes up for any inconveniences.
Shakians studies the Valley, frequenting stores and checking out shoppers in the Sherman Oaks Galleria, Fashion Square and Topanga Plaza, to see what people really want in fashion.
Design team Joel and Elizabeth Von Saken, whose luxurious sweaters are sold at Nordstrom and such local boutiques as Jana in Studio City, Irene’s in Westlake Village and Fawnn in Calabasas, have made the Valley their corporate base for seven years. Elaborate weaves--many hand-knit locally--in rich jewel colors for fall fashioned into flattering silhouettes characterize the typical Von Saken sweater. Prices range from $50 for a machine-knit sweater to as much as $300 for a cardigan-style jacket.
With an office and design studio in North Hollywood, the couple enjoys a reverse commute from their Westwood residence. Joel, who grew up in the Valley, says he and his employees enjoy the area’s friendly working environment.
“I have a good work pool, reasonable rent and free parking, unlike what you find Downtown,” he says.
“I find the Valley is a microcosm of the country,” Joel Von Saken says. “You have every ethnic group, every economic group, every fashion group. You can see in the Valley everything you can see everywhere else.”
