Westwood Gets Active
Westwood Village has long been a quiet college neighborhood amid the bustle of West Los Angeles, but Shane Wallace, president of boutique chain Active, believes the place has the potential to be a fashion retail neighborhood.
On Nov. 3, he opened the 17th Active boutique, at 1083 Broxton Ave., minutes away from the campus of University of California, Los Angeles. “The deciding factor in opening the store was that there were 40,000 [college students] within a square mile of the boutique,” Wallace said.
He also claimed that there is a dearth of his style of boutique, which mixes fashion and emerging surf and skate brands, in the affluent areas neighboring Westwood, such as Brentwood, Bel-Air and Beverly Hills.
Active Westwood is a 6,000-square-foot boutique that carries brands such as Diesel, Obey Clothing, RVCA and Ambiguous. The Westwood store also features a 1,000- square-foot loft, where the chain’s buyers will maintain a West Los Angeles satellite office. Previously, Active buyers have worked out of the company headquarters in Norco, Calif. The satellite office will give the buyers more opportunities to witness what consumers are buying on the shop floor.
Wallace said that he will build between six to eight more Active stores in 2007.
