When I was a kid, Downtown Los Angeles was a whole different ballgame. Around the intersection of 4th and Main, you couldn’t find a boutique selling Belgian knife-pleated skirts, but you certainly could find yourself getting knifed for whatever you had in your pockets, even last season’s pocket lint. As the perimeter of Skid Row shrinks to accommodate a new breed of Downtown dweller (less crack fumes and dirty bare feet / more coke residue and asymmetrical haircuts, from what I can tell…), the new retail landscape offers some surprising goods in surprising locations.
Hidden stores are nothing new, but why should I ruin the thrill of discovery?
Let’s just say that somewhere between the quadrant of 2nd and 6th and Los Angeles and Spring streets exists a quiet little boutique behind a silently-sliding panel. If you’ve just toweled off after a group shower at the city’s oldest bathhouse and are heading out the door, you would be very very warm (and perhaps in need of a serious antibiotic cream…)
Ok. Enough hints. You do the legwork if you want to pick up something from:
MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA 6 10 11 14 22 / HUSSEIN CHALAYAN / COMME DES GARCONS SHIRT / CERRE / HAZEL BROWN / UNHOLY MATRIMONY / RAF SIMONS / RAF BY RAF SIMONS / FOR CEREMONY / V::ROOM / VIVIENNE WESTWOOD / DAPHNE & VERA CORRELL
And if you know the name of the boutique, please don’t post it here.
Keep it to yourself.
And when you find it, tell them that Dino loves his boots.
