California Apparel News

The Skingraft fashion label will be the latest of several high-end fashion boutiques to put down stakes in downtown Los Angeles’ Fashion District, which has become a magnet for luxe boutiques after being a near-dead zone for high-end fashion retail up to last year.

By summer, the exclusive leather and fashion label Skingraftwill move its flagship store from the Historic Core section of downtown Los Angeles to 758 S. Spring St., which is located at the northern edge of the Fashion District.

Skingraft’s Christopher Cota said the main reason for the new address was to move to a bigger, 2,500-square-foot space. Its current space, at 125 W. Fourth, is 2,300 square feet.

Skingraft’s new flagship will be less than a 10-minute walk from the first California location for New York–based high-end multi-line boutique Oak.

On March 15, Oak quietly opened at 910 S. Broadway, at the ground floor of The Sparkle Factory, the headquarters for jewelry and accessories brand Tarina Tarantino. Oak and The Sparkle Factory are located across the street from the Ace Hotel, a boutique hotel with a fervid cult following that debuted in January at 933 S. Broadway in the old United Artists building.

A hub of high-profile boutiques and emporiums has blossomed near the Ace. An Urban Outfitters opened in December at 810 S. Broadway in the building of the historic Rialto Theatre. Acne Studios, the Swedish contemporary clothiers, debuted a 5,000-square-foot space at 855 S. Broadway the same month. The leather-goods boutique for Tanner Goods, which also offers space for men’s clothing shop The Woodlands, opened at 860 S. Broadway in February. A.P.C., a French fashion brand, will reportedly open a boutique in the neighborhood later this year, and Aesop, an Australian luxury line of soaps, shampoos and lotions, will move in soon.

Designer Tarina Tarantino, who bought the seven-story Burns Western Costume Co. building at 908 S. Broadway, across the street from the Ace Hotel, plans to open more high-end retail in the neighborhood. In late summer, the brand is scheduled to open a boutique in a floor above Oak in The Sparkle Factory building. It will offer the brand’s current collections, one-of-a-kind items and home furnishings, said Tarantino, the creative director and co-founder of the company. There is enough space for three more stores in The Sparkle Factory, which also will provide a home for her brand’s offices as well as design space.

Before she opens her permanent store, Tarantino will open a pop-up shop this spring that will offer fashion brand T-shirts and tote bags with a downtown Los Angeles theme.

The Fashion District, which was typically deserted after 6 p.m. on weekdays, has made incredible strides, said Eric Martin, the co-owner and co-designer for the MartinMartin label. He has run his design offices in the neighborhood since 1989 and opened up his flagship store at 713 S. Los Angeles St. in 2011.

Flanking the MartinMartin boutique are Henry Duarte’s atelier and Blends, the boutique for sneaker aficionados that recently relocated from downtown’s Old Bank District. Identical twin designers Chip and Pepper Foster are also considering moving to the block to open a boutique for the Chip Foster brand and a design studio for Pepper Foster.

“It’s probably a three-year overnight success story,” Martin joked. “It’s going to be a nice retail area; we still need more time.”

“The Ace Hotel has been a real shot in the arm,” Martin said. “I have a lot more upscale visitors from out of town coming into the store now. They walk up from the Ace.” He said there aren’t crowds of well-off people shopping the fashion district, but the district is getting closer to reaching the potential he saw when he opened a shop in 2011.

An advantage of opening a shop in downtown Los Angeles is that retail space is relatively cheap, Martin said. However, the real estate costs are growing, said Brigham Yen, a blogger and agent for real estate company The Agency (www.theagencyre.com).

“The cost of retail space in downtown LA varies from district to district and sometimes even block by block,” he said. Rents on the premier parts of Seventh Street, between Figueroa and Olive streets, are over $4 a foot, he said. The area around the Ace averages $3. In West Los Angeles, the most popular retail streets command much higher rents. On Robertson Boulevard, commercial space costs $12 to $16 per square foot, said Jay Luchs of real estate company NewmarkGrubbKnightEllis.