LOS ANGELES — Fashion-forward New York specialty boutique Opening Ceremony will launch its second location on Sunday here with a mission to educate the West Coast on New York style.
“The idea of the shop was to bring everything we love about New York to L.A.,” said Humberto Leon, who launched Opening Ceremony in 2002 with partner Carol Lim.
The 5,000-square-foot store on La Cienega Boulevard, which had a soft opening Thursday, stocks 60 to 70 international contemporary and designer brands. The concept for Opening Ceremony was inspired by the internationalism of the Olympic games. The New York location picks a country to feature each year, then chooses designers and manufacturers from that country to merchandise as a package.
“It’s always a certain country versus New York,” Leon said. “We borrowed the concept from [International Olympic Committee founder] Pierre de Coubertin….We announce a country a year in advance. Labels start calling and anticipation builds.”
The Los Angeles launch has inspired the retailers to pit New York designers against West Coast designers, a showdown that will start in September in both stores. Representing the left coast will be brands such as Katy Rodriguez and Jasmin Shokrian, while New York’s mascots will include Mayle, United Bamboo and Proenza Schouler.
Leon and Lim, both 32, grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs and said they wanted to open a location on their home turf.
The company doesn’t release sales figures, but Leon said he hopes sales from the Los Angeles store will meet, and eventually surpass, those of New York.
In searching for a location here, the retailers picked an historic freestanding building on La Cienega Boulevard, near Melrose Avenue. The strip is home to high-profile restaurants such as Bridge and Koi, but daytime foot traffic is scarce. “We felt like we wanted something special,” Leon said. “We wanted the space to dictate the store, not the street.”
The white-walled boutique, which was once Charlie Chaplin’s dance studio, features 12 separate-but-linked rooms. Merchandise is arranged by geographic location of origin.
A large room features pieces by European labels, including Nakkna, Mario Schwab and Lutz, while an old walk-in safe houses pieces from Brazilian designers. The store is the only distributor in Los Angeles of British fast-fashion label Topshop and dedicates a small room to the brand, next to a pantry-sized enclave stacked with Cheap Monday jeans.
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Prices for apparel range from $10 for items such as tank tops to $600 for outerwear, said Lim, who added, “We like to mix the low end with the high end.”
The front room features the company’s artsy-but-minimal private label collection, which Leon and Lim launched in 2005. The pair has recently grown the line into a full-blown collection, with accessories and shoes. Fashion-forward jewelry and accessories by companies such as Thorn, Want Essentials and Driftwood are displayed inside custom-made glass boxes balanced on top of industrial blue hydraulic carts. A former reception area was transformed into an eye-level glass case cut into the wall, filled with shoes. Two Ping-Pong tables, covered with pink-hued representations of the California state flag, dominate the men’s apparel section.
“There are a lot of wacky elements,” Leon said.