Tawny Be Good
Tawny Kitaen had just finished shopping at Flair For Women, one of her favorite boutiques in Costa Mesa, Calif. It was her birthday, and when she sat in her car she opened the birthday card from store owner Joellen Canizaro. At the end of the card was this postscript: “I’m thinking of selling the store—do you want to buy it?”
Kitaen knew at that moment that she would be the store’s new owner, and her determination to be just that gave the 42-year-old retail neophyte her first lesson in business.
“I overpaid,” she said sheepishly. “By a lot. I wanted it so bad, she told me how much she wanted and I said, ’Fine.’”
The former model and actress (best known for tempting Tom Hanks in the 1984 film “Bachelor Party”) opened the remodeled and renamed Tawny K store in June. The 1,600-square-foot boutique, located at 369 E. 17th St. in Costa Mesa, had been open for three years under the previous owner and was profitable, according to Kitaen. She expects the store to gross $1 million in annual sales.
The store marks her maiden voyage into the business world.
“Where I am right now, I don’t have to do anything,” she said. “I could just sit back and travel and do nothing. But I feel like I did that the whole first part of my life. I almost feel younger and more energized in my 40s than I did in my 20s.”
The self-described born shopper revamped and merchandised the store herself, adding another $80,000 to her undisclosed purchase price. She even works the sales floor five days a week.
The boutique had already carried such trendy lines as Frankie B., Juicy Couture, Paper Denim & Cloth and Seven for All Mankind. Kitaen has since added Da Nang, Smashing Grandpa, Isley and other lines. She is excited by “the challenge of finding who’s the next hottest designer and procuring them before the competition does.” She shops for lines at The New Mart, the California Market Center, the Cooper Building, and the Designers & Agents and Fashion Coterie shows.
Calling her taste “very L.A.,” Kitaen said sales reps have tried to take the edge off her merchandise. “I have a lot of reps that go, ’I didn’t want to show you this line because I know your girl and she’s much more Orange County,’ and I’ll say, ’Wait a minute, that was the old store.’”
But in order for more forward fashions to sell, Kitaen finds that customers need her personal salesmanship—and showmanship.
Still, Kitaen finds that navigating the rapids of retail is actually smooth sailing compared to her tempestuous love life. Presently engaged to businessman Phil Cyburt, she was formerly linked to O.J. Simpson and is divorced from both David Coverdale of the heavy metal band Whitesnake and baseball pitcher Chuck Finley, for whom she entered a plea bargain in a spousal abuse case in 2002.
“I’ve tried to figure men out,” she sighed. “And I’ve given up.” —C.M.C.
