Abbot Kinney Changes-Fashionably
When Claudia Duentilde;as-Milan opened a designer boutique in September 2002 on bohemian Abbot Kinney Boulevard, almost everyone she consulted thought she had made a big mistake.
Abbot Kinney, one of the principal streets in Los Angeles’ Venice neighborhood, has long been known as a place meant for nursing coffee over long conversations on metaphysics and art, not a place to power lunch or power shop. But the boulevard is changing.
Median home prices in the neighborhood rose from $150,000 in 1995 to $800,000 in 2005, said Stephen R. Weir, a realtor at T.R.G. Real Estate Group. While denizens swear the beatnik milieu won’t change, the days of merely munching on vegetarian sandwiches at neighborhood haunts such as Abbot’s Habit are numbered. Upscale Santa Monica restaurant Rockenwagner will move into the neighborhood by the end of the year, offering such high-end cuisine as venison carpaccio.
Duentilde;as-Milan said there’s room for both the hippies and the suits. Her wealthy clients hail from nearby Marina del Rey and Santa Monica, while the architects and film and music industry people living in the neighborhood love a splash of Venice grit in their daily routine. “It’s the closest thing to Manhattan’s Lower East Side,” Duentilde;as-Milan said. “But it’s by the beach.”
In April, Duentilde;as-Milan will add a men’s clothing store to her 1,100- square-foot boutique, Claudia Milan. The expansion is fitting because Duentilde;as-Milan, who started her career as a stylist, always favored a menswear look for women that was rooted in the elegant style of Audrey Hepburn and the daring fashion of Marlene Dietrich.
Top sellers in her store include pants from New York–based Alice & Olivia, which retail for $325.
“They’re fancy slacks,” Duentilde;as- Milan said. “But they’re cut like a great pair of rock ’n’ roll denim. It’s something that Mick Jagger or Brian Jones would wear.”
Also high on her clients’ lists are Diane von Furstenberg dresses and blouses with price points ranging from $280 to $340.
Designing women
Designers are also important at the boutique across the street. Minnie T’s owner, Barbara Phillips, said her top sellers include Loy and Ford pants ($265 to $300) that pack a surprising strength.
“Here you have this wide-legged pant that should look dorky,” Phillips said of the Los Angeles label’s trousers. “But it’s dramatic, and it’s flattering because it fits tight in the stomach and the behind, then it flares out.”
Also popular are the fashions of Los Angeles designer Hazel Brown. She hand-dyes her skirts and then adds raw-edged hems, aiming to please the sartorial whims of the sophisticated punk who doesn’t mind paying $300.
Neighboring boutiques Ananda and Ananda Shakti are tailor made for Venice. Sure, they sell clothing, but the stores also stock Buddha statuaries and books. Both shops are co-owned by Katherine Kemp, a doctoral candidate in comparative religions at the University of California, Los Angeles, and musician Kim Michalowski.
The two emphasize that yoga clothes are not their only retail obsession.
“When we opened, that was all we had,” Michalowski said. “We got kind of sick of it.”
To be sure, yoga-focused labels such as Los Angeles–based Om Girl still do well at the boutiques. But rock ’n’ roll T-shirts by Los Angeles’ Palazzo, which carry the cheeky slogan “Keith Richards for President,” are also popular at $30. Wrap-around sweaters by Tulle, retailing for $44, are another favorite.
Menswear store Wolf is a newcomer to the block. The shop, which opened last fall, sells hip, casual clothes by Chip & Pepper, Penguin and Modern Amusement.
Customers can often find co-managers Scott Springer and Derek First playing bass guitar or painting pictures in the loftlike boutique. That’s when the owners are not singing the praises of their top sellers, which include blazers by Modern Amusement ($205), jeans by Chip & Pepper ($150 to $230) and reproductions of vintage concert tees by Trunk ($80 to $100).
