Hannah Bean: Staking a Sophisticated Spot in Santa Ana, Calif.
With its real estate covered by freeways, regional malls and tract housing, the north end of Santa Ana, Calif., looks like classic California suburbia to Christina Harrison. At first glance, she thought a high-end fashion store might seem out of place here. But Harrison and business partner Nicole Dale decided conventional wisdom about the place could be proven wrong.
They opened fashion boutique Hannah Bean at 111 E. City Place Drive in the City Place retail center in Santa Ana. Both the boutique and the retail center debuted in September 2007. Harrison and Dale planned to devote the 360 square feet of their boutique to designers such as Rebecca Taylor, Nanette Lepore and Ella Moss. The boutique is just one of the entrepreneurs’ projects. For their primary jobs, Harrison is the owner of a 10-year-old talent agency, CA Talent, and Dale is vice president of operations for Santa Ana–based accessories fashion house Harveys, which also runs a boutique at City Place.
Although the first couple of months of business were slow, retail traffic picked up as more shops and restaurants opened in City Place, Harrison said. Their gamble paid off, too. Their new customers gravitated to the boutique’s contemporary fashion. New York–based fashion label Nanette Lepore has been a hit. Recently, Hannah Bean customers were buying Lepore’s strapless silk “Tintoretto dress,” which sells for $330, at the elegant boutique. They also picked the frilly Nanette Lepore “Rendez-Vous” top, which sells for $255, and the hip-length “Hanky Panky,” which sells for $430.
Hannah Bean also offers more-casual fashions, including contemporary denim by Joe’s Jeans and T-shirts by Signorelli Omnipeace. Harrison and Dale said they believe theirmall can be a place for culture. The GoRilla GoZilla art gallery opened at City Place on May 2. Harrison and Dale said they hope to prove that one does not have to live in a famous fashion neighborhood to find art and design. “I did not know Santa Ana well before the boutique opened,” said Harrison, who lives in Yorba Linda, Calif. “It is a lot more sophisticated than I thought.”—Andrew Asch
