Colette
This legendary Parisian boutique-slash-gallery is
still tens across the board! Stocking the likes of Gareth Pugh, Jeremy
Scott (see below), House of Holland, Y3 trainers and the music of
Heartschallenger (see below), Colette is one-stop shopping for ITK (in
the know) kids.
Opening Ceremony
Humberto Leon and Carol Lim have recently
moved their New York City avant-garde boutique vision to the West Coast
-- to Charlie Chaplin's former dance studio, specifically. Decor
includes hydraulic jewelry cases and labyrinthian arrangements that
reflect the iconic congestion of W.C. life.
Undefeated
Aka "Undftd," this LA boutique (with locations
on La Brea and in Silver Lake and Santa Monica) is best known for
limited edition sneakers produced by Nike and Adidas exclusively for
Undefeated. Other claims to fame... Air Jordan 4s and the billboard
project on La Brea which mixes fine art with street art and places it
where everyone can see it... Brilliant!
M.A.C. Cosmetics
Keeping drag queens, rappers, and trust fund sisters pretty for over
20 years. With a pound of base and a whole lotta color, the world can be
a better place!
The Smell
This all age punk/noise/experimental party palace
still stinks... in a good way! Indie bands and abstract artists take
refuge here and find common ground at the vegan snack bar.
Levi's Damien Hirst
The bad-boy artist (who's now a good
boy?), most recently in the news for his diamond-covered cast of a human
skull, continues his obsession with anatomy and the bling factor. A new
collection for the Levi's Warhol Factory line features skull shaped
patterns outlined with crystals.
Screaming Mimi's
Retro chic is the look here. Sixties
vintage platform shoes, '70s Chloe dresses and '80s Member's Only
jackets are just a few of the treats that can be found at this New York
institution.
Ooga Booga
Created by a collective of young artists and
designers, this raw storefront space houses a menagerie of zines,
novels, comics and independent music. As well as clothing lines such as
Amy Yao, Keep Company shoes and Tagbanger shirts.
Mollusk
This multiple-locationed surf shop specializes in
exclusive handcrafted boards from top shapers like Manny Caro, Michel
Junod, and Chris Christenson. Bonus: A cute, real surfer-boy staff that
will recommend a "stick" best suited for your pleasure.
Citizen-Citizen
An online project featuring emerging
British object-art designers who transform everyday objects into objects
of desire. Our personal favorite is the 18-karat-gold-dipped coke spoon.
RVCA
Pronounced "Rooka," this art-surf-skate line was
founded by designer P.M. Tenore in 2001. The line features a who's who
of contributing artists like Mark Hunter (see below), Mark Mothersbaugh,
Brendan Fowler among others.
Show Pony
A little pink shop/art-space in Echo Park owned by artist Kime
Buzzelli. In addition to selling an eclectic mix of vintage clothes and
antique wares, on the first Saturday of every month Bizzelli pairs an
indie designer with a specific artist, creating a designer/artist
residency of sorts.
Creative Growth
A San-Francisco-based facility for developmentally disabled adult
artists that provides an environment for artistic freedom, gallery
promotion and personal expression. Creative Growth recently teamed up
with PAPER -- see the results here.
Jack Spade
A Jack Spade messenger bag is the bag of choice
for city-dwelling men with good taste. Recognize.
Lost + Found
The coolest kids in the under-four-feet-tall
crowd (and their parents) will want to head to Jamie Rosenthal's
children's boutique, which she describes as "Alice in Wonderland meets
Jimi Hendrix."
William Good
Nick Graham (of Joe Boxer fame)'s new venture
involves taking items from Goodwill's discard bin, hiring designers to
gussy them up, and selling them -- in effect, preventing 75 percent of
Goodwill's donated items from ending up in a landfill. The
highly-anticipated collection will be on sale for the first time at
PAPER's 24-Hour Department Store!
Heartschallenger
Heartschallenger comes straight from the
unicorn-dappled brain of our favorite Renaissance woman Leyla Safai: She
sings, she makes clothes, she drives an ice cream truck.
The Cobrasnake
If you've been photographed by The
Cobrasnake (aka Mark Hunter) you've made it. If you've interviewed his
mother (ahem, Carol) you've doubly made it.
Supreme
The cool New York skate shop to end all cool New
York skate shops, helmed by James Jebbia, recently opened shop in L.A.
Now it's the cool L.A. skate shop to end all L.A. skate shops. Go
figure.
A+R
Pronounced "A Plus R," this global design boutique
(with two locations -- one in Silverlake, one on Abbot Kinney) is run by
PAPER favorite Rose Apodaca (and former West Coast bureau chief of WWD)
and her husband Andy Griffith.
Ingo Maurer
Not only did Ingo Maurer design the big neon
pink-orange light in PAPER's conference room, but he recently had a huge
exhibit of his brilliant lighting designs at Cooper-Hewitt!
Threeasfour
We were joking that new PAPER interns should be
required to look at a photo of Threeasfour and be able to identify on
the spot which one is Adi, Gabi and Ange. In other words, these
avant-chic designers, nominated for CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award, are
some of our favorites.
FUCT
A legendary skate brand founded by Erik Brunetti and
Steve Rocco's World Industries in the early '90s that still knows how to
create a good, old-fashioned anti-establishment ruckus.
Rodarte
In just a few years, Pasadena-based
designers/sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy have created one of the most
talked-about, respected, exciting and beautiful new clothing lines.
Jeremy Scott
Fashion maverick Jeremy Scott has posed in his
MySpace profile photo with both Lindsay Lohan and Cory Kennedy,
if that gives you an idea of him, and his clothing.
Modern Appealing Clothing
Also referred to as MAC, this
sibling-run (Ben and Chris Ospital) San Francisco boutique carries an
expertly-curated mix of global designers and local brands -- making it,
hands down, one of SF's best shops.
Hit + Run
If you like your silkscreening done on the fly and at parties, then
you'll love Brandy Flower and Mike Crivello's T-shirt line/movement
HIT+RUN. The duo set up shop at a party, enlist an artist to create a
silkscreen design and make T-shirts on the spot.
(( ANDREW ANDREW'S SONGS TO SHOP TO ))
Andrew Andrew are PAPER's go-to, identically
named/dressed DJs, and as such we like to take them with us to L.A. They
DJ-d last night's Levi's On the Rox art exhibit and tonight they'll be
DJ-ing and hosting PAPER's 24-Hour Department Store. To get you in the
mood for spending money on limited edition wares, we asked them to give
us their favorite songs to shop to.
1. "Ballade Des Petites Petons" - Andre Popp (La Musique Qui Fait
Popp: Highlights From The Works Of Andre Popp 1952-1962)
2. "Girl in a Sportscar" - Alan Hawkshaw (Essential Vibes & Grooves 1967-1975)
3. "Mo'Hawk" - Alan Hawkshaw (Essential Vibes &
Grooves 1967-1975)
4. "Always True to You in My Fashion" - Peggy Lee
With George Shearing (Anything Goes: Capitol Sings Cole Porter)
5. "Rich Man's Frug" - Cy Coleman (Sweet Charity)
6. "Oh Calcutta" - The Dave Pell Singers (The Sound Gallery Volume 1)
7. "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" - Talking Heads (Sand in
the Vaseline, disc 1)
(( FOUR QUESTIONS FOR BARBARA BESTOR ))
Barbara Bestor is one of Los Angeles' foremost modern architects, and
something of a celebrity round these parts! So we were quite
thrilled that she designed this year's PAPER Project Space. In the midst
of the madness, we were able to ask Ms. Bestor a few questions...
1. Tell me the idea behind the PAPER Project space...
Weeellll, we had to accommodate both a hanging art show and a whole
bunch of stores, and the space had been rented with the condition that
we COULD NOT TOUCH THE WALLS OR THE CEILINGS! Plus, we had to build
and/or install the whole deal in about a day! Plus there was little
money, so I was trying to find used movie sets and things like that, but
then I realized that the scaffolding we would have used to install it
with would actually make a better structure itself. So we made a model
or two in the erector set vein and then tried out wrapping it in various
materials (paper, tyvek, etc.) to see what would be
better-faster-cheaper. Et voila! The semi-Christo,
scaffolding-PAPER world, with the lounge in the middle... The idea was
to make a flexible building within a building, a substructure for all
these magazine activities!
2. You are clearly very inspired by mid-century modern Los Angeles
architecture... Why are you -- and so many others -- so taken with this
movement?
Well sometimes I am very inspired by that, but right now I guess my
favorite buildings are 1920s L.A. modern, 1972 sea ranch/Northern Cali,
1890s New England Queen Anne oddities, contemporary Tokyo retail, Marfa
stuff, old Herzog de Meuron... All over the map really! BUT, that being
said, I think the pull of the mid-century stuff is that it took the
modern desire (seen in Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie style and the
European modernist glass houses) to integrate the house with its natural
surroundings, and realized it in a variety of accessible, inexpensive
and (with the help of our warm climate) truly indoor/outdoor houses...
They are so simple but usually really, really good spaces.
3. What exactly is "Bohemian Modern" -- the title of your 2006
book?
Well, it is a manifesto for a modern architecture that is not rigidly
prescriptive and antiseptic -- especially in how you live with it in the
everyday. In my neighborhood there are all these great examples of
people living in modern environments that are at the same time truly
expressive of their individuality, sort of the antithesis of the high
modern culture that you sometimes see in decorating magazines where the
architectural aesthetic dominates the individual. I think my favorite
poster-boy and girl for this manifesto are Charles and Ray Eames, whose
house in Santa Monica Canyon was a pair of industrial machine-aesthetic
boxes but then had these surprising color panels and a ridiculously rich
collection of artifacts, rugs, furniture, etc. -- sort of a treasure
house on the inside.
I was just in Tokyo and saw a great contemporary example of the
bohemian modern thing -- though it was really two different spaces... On
one side of the Omotesando is the new Prada store by Herzog and de
Meuron, which is brilliant, hyper-modern, with a good landscape design,
full transparency, etc, etc. On the other side of the street is a little
sign that says "loveless," and you go down this dark tunnel, down two
stories into a dark, gothic, cavernous space with very cool records and
rock clothes -- and it is super glamorous and thrilling. So to me, the
bohemian modern thing is sort of the dual appreciation of these
superficially conflicted realities -- the desire for aesthetic beauty
and pure perfection on the one hand, and the desire for messy, dark,
human sexy stuff on the other. I think design work that can acknowledge
that spectrum of desire is very powerful.
4. What's your favorite building in L.A.?
Man oh man. That changes a lot. A standard for me is the Schindler
Kings Road house. I had my (first) wedding there even! I also love the
Art Center School building by Craig Ellwood at twilight -- it is a
bridge over a ravine and it just glows magically. I like a lot of
landscape work here too, like Melinda Taylor's upper level gardens at
the Concert Hall, the garden at the Norton Simon Museum, the weird
little Noguchi garden in Newport Beach... yadda yadda
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