Positively Third Street
Bracketed between two of the biggest retail attractions in Los Angeles, an unlikely new group of retailers has popped up on the mile of Third Street between The Grove and the Beverly Center. These new boutiques mix the artsy grit of Los Angeles’ Eastside and the high-tone savvy of West Los Angeles. They are creating a unique business district of independent shops and paving the way for another Southland rarity: an urban walking area.
Retailer Alisa Loftin and designer Cynthia Vincent had a hunch The Grove would bring more foot traffic to Third Street, so they moved their Aero & Co. boutique from the Los Feliz district to their current digs on the corner of Orlando and Third Street more than one year ago.
Loftin said the new location’s clientele has been highly receptive to her store’s specialty: Los Angeles designers who have not yet registered on the public’s radar screen. Women of all ages, but mostly those in their early 20s to early 30s, come in for the latest designs of Brian Lichtenberg, Grey Ant and Lupita Peckinpah.
Price points range from $100 to $300 for Aero’s wares, which include Grey Ant’s strapless jumpsuit, Lichtenberg’s one-of-a-kind neo-punk/new wave dresses and the unique embroidery and heat transfers of Peckinpah’s pants and dresses.
People also come for the gallery-style interior design of the boutique. Antique meat hooks hang in the middle of the store, providing a new kind of rack for dresses and handbags. The hooks are illuminated by a collection of angular light fixtures that Vincent rescued from junkyards.
At the Trina Turk store, shoppers are greeted by 80 glass globe light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, blush-pink tiles on the floor and floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows. The designer describes the feeling of the boutique as like “being in a glass of pink champagne.”
Turk opened this boutique, her second, in November to showcase her design house. (She opened her first store in 2002 in Palm Springs, Calif.) Her most popular pieces include a cotton poncho ($128) and the “Lesa” pant ($176), which features a wide leg and a low waist.
Another recent addition to Third Street is Erica Tanov, an 8-year-old line from Berkeley, Calif. Outfitted with antique mirrors and chaises, the 1,500-square-foot shop looks something like a simple French country store that deals in an understated but exotic elegance.
Highlights of the store’s 2003 lines include Tanov’s petal-silk slip dresses, mohair sweaters and translucent pieces crafted out of exotic fabrics, including Mukesh voile, which, like all of Tanov’s fabrics, is from Paris.
Price points range anywhere from $4 for a candle to $100 to $700 for clothes. Tanov designs more than 90 percent of the fashions in the store, but the shop also includes international designers Megan Park of London and Antipast of Tokyo.
No hipster neighborhood is complete without some Tokyo couture, and Toshimichi Aoshima, owner of the Q-Two boutique, brings Japanese pop culture to Third Street.
T-shirts designed by Tomochicka Udono were popular in 2003. Priced at about $28, the shirts feature Udono’s anime/cartoon-like designs. Also popular are corduroy miniskirts cut in a schoolgirl uniform style, priced at about $68, by design company Chii.
The 1,400-square-foot Scout boutique could be Aero & Co.’s younger brother. Co-owned by Greg Armas and Joseph Grana, aged 25 and 26, it is the first retail venture for Armas and the second for Grana, who has owned and managed Fullerton, Calif.–based boutique Geez Louise since 1997.
Specializing in vintage pieces from design houses such as Gucci and Chanel, as well as new Southern California designers such as Charizmatik and Apexmuseum, Scout lives up to its name by sniffing out what’s next in fashion.
Scout just opened its doors in November, but Armas has seen enough to know that the shoppers of Third Street have financial potential yet to be tapped.
“People know Third Street has good boutiques, and they’re prepared to spend money,” he said. “Every time I brought in a piece which I thought was priced too high, people always bought it.”
