Less Pinch, More Style at Pretty Pennies
After sharing cyberspace with its menswear counterpart, Los Angeles–based online fashion boutique Pretty Pennies (www.prettypennies.com) branched out on its own to create a place just for the ladies to shop.
Launched in spring 2010, Pretty Pennies is an offshoot of streetwear e-tail site Moose Limited (www.mltd.com) and is the brainchild of original Moose Limited buyer Kelsey Stengle. “I was doing the women’s buying for [Moose Limited] and felt like women needed a place of their own,” Stengle said. “For the most part, women don’t like to take their boyfriends or their brothers shopping with them, so I wanted to do something separate—a girls-only club.”
While Stengle’s official title is buyer, she serves as a Jill of all trades for Pretty Pennies and also has a hand in the merchandising and styling for the site.
Stengle said she likes to keep the styling and aesthetic of the site very clean and minimal in order to let each piece stand on its own.
Bestsellers include designs by Dolce Vita, Wildfox, Insight, Cheap Monday, MinkPink, We Are Handsome and BB Dakota. “The range is so wide, so there is a little something for everyone,” Stengle said. Retail price points range from $18 for tees to $300 for a pair of boots, with a majority of the pieces sold on the site retailing for under $100, according to Stengle.
Stengle thinks of the Pretty Pennies shopper as an L.A. Eastsider girl who is not a slave to trends and imagines her closet filled with vintage pieces. “She’s a cool cat, but she definitely doesn’t try too hard,” Stengle said. Stengle named blogger Rumi Neely of style blog Fashion Toast as an inspiration for the site for her ability to mix designer and contemporary pieces with vintage designs.
Stengle also runs Pretty Pennies’ blog and gives it its distinct and unique voice. “The blog, Facebook and Twitter are a chance to interact with the people who are shopping on the site,” Stengle said. “Being online only, you lose that face-to-face shopping experience, and it’s almost as if the site is run by robots. I like to comment back and forth and remind people that there’s a real person behind the curtain and [that] she really, really likes shoes.”
Next up for Stengle is gearing up the site for its first holiday shopping season and arming Pretty Pennies with holiday-ready merchandise, such as party dresses.—Connie Cho
