RESPONSE TO TERROR
There wasn’t a drop of bubbly for the tattooed crowd, no live models, either--just vodka cranberry cocktails served in plastic cups and a strange film running on a loop with image after image of people knocking on doors. There were freebies--copies of Vogue magazine--until they were commandeered by a mousy guerrilla artist, who defaced each and every Britney Spears cover with stickers that read, “Envy Me Loser,” “Fantasy With Purchase” and “Style Beyond Your Reach.”
This wasn’t your typical in-store fashion event, but Los Feliz’s Aero & Co. isn’t your typical store. Neither are Show Pony, LaborFruit, Blest or Beige. They are part of a new generation of indie boutiques helping to nurture local design talent and popularize the one-of-a-kind, neo-Bohemian looks that have come to define West Coast hip at this moment.
The cranberry-soaked carouse was actually a trunk show for designers Katy Rodriguez, 32, and Mark Haddawy, 33. The owners of the popular Resurrection vintage stores on Melrose Avenue and in New York’s East Village debuted their own line at well-established Henri Bendel in Manhattan last year. But when it was time to introduce it here, they approached Aero. They thought the well-edited shop was just the place for their quirky felt coats and handbags, emblazoned with an abstract tartan created by artist friend Raymond Pettibon.
“[Aero] has a fresh approach. You don’t have to have been in this magazine or that one to be here, unlike stores in New York,” said Rodriguez, dressed in one of her own designs, a gray cowl-neck dress trimmed in Pettibon plaid. “It’s not all about the brand.”
Cynthia Vincent, 34, a designer herself, and Alisa Loftin, 33, opened the shop two years ago to feature talent they felt wasn’t getting its due. At the same time, they formed the Coalition of Los Angeles Designers, a support group of sorts that has now turned into a nonprofit that organizes charity events and fashion shows, including one during L.A. Fashion Week, which began Thursday.
“The idea was to help designers who didn’t have a voice. There were people doing amazing things here and selling them to their friends,” said Vincent. Just off Vermont Avenue in an airy space that could just as well be an art gallery, the store was among the first to feature the lines of newcomers such as Magda Berliner, Ina Celaya and Grant Krajecki. A few are now selling their lines to stores such Barneys New York.
New York’s signature stores are the old line Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s. L.A.’s: Fred Segal, Maxfield and American Rag; and, in the past, JAX and Giorgio Beverly Hills. Small stores have long been arbiters of chic here by being the first to take on unknowns such as Rudi Gernreich, Hard Candy Cosmetics and Earl Jeans.
“I have always considered New York a department store city and L.A. a boutique city,” said Marylou Luther, a syndicated fashion columnist who was The Times’ fashion editor from 1969 to 1985. The distinction “reflects the personalities of the two places. Small shops work in L.A. because it is so spread out.”
Like their predecessors, new-generation stores have a point of view. But being the first to bring the latest international designers to L.A. isn’t what they’re about. It’s home-grown talent, now enjoying a boost from fashion’s seemingly insatiable thirst for individualistic looks. You’ve never heard of the designer names these stores feature, but that’s the point. “People are interested in wearing anonymous-looking dresses,” said Marlien Rentmeester, West Coast editor of Conde Nast’s shopping magazine Lucky. “Storekeepers know that, so they are stocking unknown designers.”
L.A. offers designers affordable places to live and work, not to mention the possibility of celebrity dressing. Fashion week here has yet to become a world class event, but boutiques--some owned by the designers themselves--have helped L.A. gain clout and local names gain recognition in magazines such as Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and W.
They have served as de facto showrooms for designers. Because boutiques don’t make huge seasonal buys, designers may deliver pieces throughout the year. And their ideas are not limited by shipping dates.
“I’ve seen people from bigger stores come in to look at what direction we’re headed so they can play off of it,” said Christina Carey, 24, who owns Blest with knitwear designer Liz Khader. The Hollywood spot is part Zen tranquillity (the dressing room is bounded by shoji screens), part skull-and-crossbones punk rock. It’s just steps away from Beauty Bar and open late.
“People love that they can come shop after a few cocktails,” said Carey, a club scene regular. There’s a line of deconstructed Blest T-shirts for sale (Courtney Love nabbed a few, Carey offered), men’s and women’s shredded button-down shirts by local label Ynubb, fingerless gloves by Relish with “Rotten” spelled out on them, hand-painted toilet seats and other must-haves.
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Celebrity exposure helps. Stylists who would sooner die than risk sending a famous client down the red carpet in the same outfit as a screen rival are enthusiastic patrons of Diavolina, Bleu, Sailors & Sirens and K Bond for menswear. But so are regular shoppers, looking for a respite from chain stores and the mall. “The stores are less generic,” said Ruth O’Neill, 30, a researcher who lives near Aero. “They have more of a neighborhood feeling.” The clothes don’t come cheap, however; most pieces at Aero and the other boutiques are $100 and up.
Luther and others say shoppers are wary of department stores and malls after the Sept. 11 attacks and are seeking smaller venues instead. This should add to the popularity of the boutiques that have popped up mostly in the affordable Echo Park, Los Feliz and Hollywood neighborhoods, Luther added.
The more unconventional spaces seem to be rooted in art rather than commerce, but they still project an image of cool that’s devoured by fashion magazines. Echo Park’s Show Pony feels more like a hangout than a business (the credit card machine is almost impossible to spot and there doesn’t seem to be a register at all).
On any given day, there are likely to be people sitting on the velveteen couch, leafing through magazines, munching on burritos and chatting with free-spirited owner Kime Buzzelli, 32. The interior isn’t really an interior, but an art installation with a new theme each month, which means new paint, furnishings, fixtures and, of course, a party. On Saturday, “The Fancy & Delicious Show” will usher in November’s food theme with edible cake sculptures made by a Washington, D.C., performance art group.
“This place exists as some kind of seventh-grade bedroom for me,” said Buzzelli, dressed on a recent afternoon in an empire-waist dress, silvery knee-high stockings and brown, leather sandals. Her work involves silk-screening Margaret Keane-like female figures onto vintage separates. One piece she said has been borrowed for several photo shoots is a black pleated leather skirt hand-painted with wide-eyed women. Buzzelli also stocks Rock & Sissy, Tres Flores, Fleur and R.U.N. Citizen’s Band, and counts Mick Jagger, Milla Jovovich and Lenny Kravitz among her famous clientele.
A few of the pieces are so abstract that it’s difficult to tell the front from the back. In the tradition of Imitation of Christ (the designers are friends of Buzzelli’s), much of the store’s clothing seems to be made from deconstructed flea market and Salvation Army finds. A filmy shirt is stained, a dress wrinkled, T-shirts tattered and frayed--but “all the pieces tell a story,” Buzzelli explained mystically, stopping to say “hi” to a friend doing pirouettes in the middle of the floor and wearing a black dress with a bushy “tail.” “Like you don’t know how you ever made it but you did,” she said.
On nearby Alvarado Street, LaborFruit veers from the artistic to the political, with a dedication to “the destruction of corporate America,” according its Web site. Orchid Velasquez was moved to open the store after working for several years in L.A.’s garment district. “It’s a direct affront to sweatshops and their abuse of labor,” said Aaron Kuehn, another owner. “It’s about the people that make clothing actually earning the money from it, because if you find something nice at Gap, you don’t know where the money is going or what you are supporting.”
Using a defiant fist as its logo, the year-old store/art gallery functions like a collective. Offerings include purses made from geisha-print fabric, asymmetrical canvas skirts, beaded jewelry and patchwork dresses made from swatches of velvet, silk and chiffon. Each piece is one of a kind. Designers who work the sales counter in the store can earn as much as 100% from sales of their pieces, Kuehn said. “We try to pretend that there is no business, that we’re just making art and selling it.”
But owning a store isn’t easy. What is new can quickly become old, and even boutiques of established designers (Daryl K. and Todd Oldham) have folded in short order. The bottom line is coming into play at Beige, a Beverly Boulevard shop decorated with Eames chairs and other mid-century Modernist trappings one would expect from the neighborhood. Owners Kelly Peterson, 31, and Tina Webb, 32, are struggling after a year in business to strike a balance between show pieces and things that bring in the bucks. One-of-a-kind, mangled knit sweaters by Japanese newcomer Yoshiki Hishinuma may elicit customer comments, but at $800 they aren’t big sellers. “Now I know why Fred Segal and other stores that were so admired by us went mainstream. It’s difficult,” said Peterson.
Still, L.A.’s new indie stores seem committed to the cutting edge. “It would be much easier to walk up and down a trade show and pick out clothes,” said Blest’s Khader. “But as a designer myself, I am passionate about not selling out.”
