U.K. Luxury Brand Eskandar Opens on Melrose
United Kingdom–headquartered label Eskandar opened an elegant 5,000-square-foot emporium at 8816 Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood, Calif., across the street from pioneering fashion boutique Maxfield.
The West Hollywood location is the fifth Eskandar shop. The others are in London, Paris, Milan and New York. An Eskandar boutique will open in Chicago later this year, said label founder Eskandar Nabavi, who prefers to go by his first name only.
After years of wholesaling his cashmere sweaters to retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Eskandar said he chose Los Angeles for a boutique location because most of his American customers, besides those who live in New York, reside in Southern California.
Eskandar started his collection with cashmere sweaters, and he said the average price point for his shop is $1,000 for a sweater. The low price point for his collection is $150 for a T-shirt, but it goes up to $6,000 for a shearling coat. His core demographic is women age 40 and up. “It’s not fashion-driven,” he said. “There’s nothing tight, and there’s nothing structured.”
His store not only sells an entire collection—ranging from jeans to dresses and raincoats—it also sells vintage furniture, mostly with an European pedigree, as well as ceramics and homewares.
Housed in the former site of a gym, the West Hollywood Eskandar store will frequently move gallery-style displays around. Eskandar designed the store’s look, and what will remain permanent in the store will be décor such as antique railing posted above the store’s grand 14-foot-high doors. The railing was cut from a more than 200-year-old English balcony. The shop also is the site of a tranquil garden in an open-air alcove on the first floor.—A.A.
