California Apparel News

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s website encourages people to share their ideas to create jobs and deliver better city services for the City of Angels, but Fraser Ross, founder of the Los Angeles–based boutique chain Kitson, said he has been unable to speak with the mayor about L.A. retail.

So this week, Ross posted a provocative message at the flagship Kitson store at 115 S. Robertson Blvd. in Los Angeles and at his Melrose Avenue store, in West Hollywood. The signs say, “Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles, Why Won’t You Talk to Us? What Are You Afraid of? The Truth?” The messages ends with the hashtag #getusameeting.

For the past few months, Ross contends, he has been trying to get some time with the mayor to talk about ways to improve boutique business at Los Angeles International Airport, where Kitson runs two boutiques, one at Terminal 7, another at Tom Bradley International Terminal. But he said he’s gotten nothing but the cold shoulder from the mayor.

One of Ross’ grievances is that while Los Angeles–area restaurants are well represented at LAX, he contends that Kitson is the only Los Angeles–headquartered boutique at LAX. “Local businesses are not being respected at LAX,” Ross said. He contends that the national businesses running boutiques and concessions at LAX are regularly fumbling opportunities to build better businesses.

“He’s a public servant,” Ross said of Garcetti. “But I don’t think he understands the word ‘public.’”

Ross plans to continue upping the ante for his grievance. He said that he would place more messages demanding a meeting with Garcetti on the windows of his other Los Angeles–area boutiques.

The mayor’s office countered that it had met with Kitson on a number of occasions.

“Kitson has a contractual dispute with Hudson,” Jeff Millman, a spokesman for the mayor said, referring to Hudson Group, a prominent concessionaire at LAX. “The mayor’s office has brought both sides together and hopes both sides can resolve their differences.”

Ross rejected the notion that his grievance was a contractual dispute and said that he hoped to talk to the mayor himself about boosting the profitability of boutiques at LAX. Kitson runs a fleet of 27 boutiques including an e-commerce emporium at www.shopkitson.com.

Lately, LAX has been on the mayor’s radar screen. On Jan. 6, his office announced that the airport had broken records for passenger levels. In 2014, 43.4 million visitors made Los Angeles their ultimate destination while an estimated 70.7 million passengers traveled through LAX last year.

Kitson frequently uses windows as a platform. In September 2013, Ross posted a message in the Robertson store window to demand a boycott of NBC. At issue was “Today” anchor Tamron Hall’s critique of Kitson for stocking T-shirts from the Brian Lichtenberg label bearing names of prescription drugs. According to Kitson, Hall stated during a “Today” screening that people should not shop at Kitson until it dropped the Lichtenberg shirts.