California Apparel News

Los Angeles–headquartered designer Eva Franco opened her first solo branded boutique Nov. 6, located at 1555 Echo Park Blvd., close to the fashion store Tavin in Los Angeles’ Echo Park neighborhood.

Franco said that her self-named shop, Eva Franco, will not look like a boutique. Rather, it will be reminiscent of walking into a designer’s atelier. Bolts of fabric and trim will be artfully placed in the 500-square-foot space. Antique wood carved doors, originally crafted in 19th-century Cairo, will cover the entries to the shop’s dressing rooms.

In a nod to the social-media age, shoppers can take pictures of themselves in front of the dressing room’s rolling screens, which will feature backgrounds of Paris or gardens, both of which will bear the logo of Eva Franco.

Franco started her dress line Eva Franco in 2001 when she sold her tailored yet whimsical dresses at the Melrose Trading Post flea market at Fairfax High School. Since then, her dresses have sold at high-marquee retailers such as Anthropologie, Nordstrom’s etail site, Mod Cloth, Amazon.com and various independent boutiques. For her dresses, she typically sources high-quality fabric, sometimes at $20 a yard. She currently employs 15 people at her downtown Los Angeles atelier and her New York showroom.

She wanted to open a branded boutique because she felt that there was no place to see the entire range of her lines, Eva Franco and Coconinno, a diffusion line with a young spirit. Eventually, the Eva Franco store will offer third-party items such as jewelry and handbags, as well as one-of-a-kind Eva Franco dresses. In October, her company introduced Eva by Eva Franco, which are special-occasion dresses that retail for less than $200. They will not be sold at the store.

The Echo Park shop also will serve stylists for film and TV programs. Zooey Deschanel has worn Eva Franco dresses on the sitcom “New Girl.”

The Echo Park store is not Franco’s first foray into retail. In 2007, she participated in a partnership to run a now-defunct Eva Franco boutique in Irvington, Va., a resort town in the Chesapeake Bay area. The partnership dissolved after a year. The Echo Park store will provide her with direct communication with her shoppers, information that she treasured during her days selling at the Melrose Trading Post and the times she worked at the Virginia store. “It was such great feedback for me,” she said.

If the Echo Park boutique is deemed a success, Franco might open a shop in New York. “It’s just the beginning,” she said.