California Apparel News

When Alan Hall drives his commercial truck, he has to tell people that he is not a handyman. Despite his truckload of heavy tools, he is a retailer of fashionable, often frilly, contemporary clothes. However, the truck is central to his business at his boutiques Eden, Muse and Randy, based in the seaside towns of Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach, Calif.

He is on a one-man mission to rebuild the interiors of his boutiques, and he believes that it is one of the most rewarding parts of retailing.

“If the store looks different, then it’s a boutique,” Hall said. “If it looks like a standard place, it reflects on what you’re selling.”

He believes that do-it-yourself interior store design has saved money and given him a competitive edge. He is one of several boutique owners who has crafted the looks of their stores without the professional direction of the architects or the interior designers who often shape the looks of boutiques and department stores owned by high- profile retailers.

But these retailers’ ambition to take on added work as architects and carpenters has often resulted in some painful learning curves. Hall and other boutique owners, Arbor’s Bob Carlson and Chris Jensen and All Purpose owners Alessandro Tomassetti and Alon Rosenfeld, recently talked to California Apparel News about how they took vanilla retail spaces and made them unique vehicles for retailing.

Paradise at Eden

In 2003, Hall gave his contemporary boutique on Long Beach’s 2nd Street a new identity by calling it Eden. He felt that the atmosphere of the store should reflect the garden-like milieu of the biblical Eden, so he installed a few leafy trees into the boutique and painted a cloud mural on the ceiling. There was more work to be done, however. The store furniture had to evoke the primeval beauty of Eden.

He wanted to build a bench that would look like a leaf. Yet he did not want to spend an estimated $1,500 for an artist to custom make the bench for him. Instead he decided to merely budget $200 and see what he could create. So he cut some plywood in the shape of a leaf and found some wrought-iron legs that were molded curly like vines. After putting those two elements together, he traveled to an upholstery shop in downtown Los Angeles. There he purchased some foam for bench cushions and some green and gold fabric that looked like the skin of a leaf. He later attached the foam and the fabric to the body of the bench with a staple gun. He said it was the bench he desired. It seats four people.

Hall had a head start in creating his own look for his boutique. He did some construction work growing up and later performed some work building Hollywood sound stages. “You have to think like a prop master,” he said about creating a retail environment.

But he also gave some tips for those who might not have the time or the inclination for retail construction.

For a shabby chic display case, Hall recommended buying an antique such as an armoire and installing some lights and a glass door on it.

For a quick, easy change to the store, paint the interior a new color. “It’s cheap, and if you don’t like it, you can paint over it,” he said.

For an ornate ceiling, he recommended installing tin ceiling panels. They are what the Victorian-era middle class used to make homes seem as expensive as those of the landed gentry.

He recommended that retailers check with their city planning department to find if their store changes comply with city code. For structural, electrical, and plumbing work, he recommended hiring professionals.

Homework at All Purpose

Alessandro Tomassetti and Alon Rosenfeld made a lot of mistakes when they remodeled their home in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz neighborhood in 2005. So Tomassetti felt that redesigning a boutique would be easier since they had already gone through a learning curve.They opened their boutique, All Purpose, just off stylish retail thoroughfare West Third Street in October. Tomassetti has a background as a fine artist and a 3-D animator. Rosenfeld is trained in electrical engineering.

So they constructed elaborate floor plans before changing one aspect of the 800-square-foot space that once housed a nail salon. While workmen took off the space’s linoleum floors and a carpenter made special shelving for the space, they also found other ways to make the space dramatic.

They hung an aluminum mesh curtain to divide All Purpose’s 300-square-foot retail space from the more than 240 square feet that serves as the design studio for Tomassetti’s menswear label, Filius.

When Tomassetti was unable to find wallpaper he liked for the store, he painted the store walls silver and had an artist make decals in the shape of modern-looking graphics. They stuck the graphics all over the silver-painted walls, giving the illusion of unique wallpaper. Tomassetti and Rosenfeld spent $50,000 on the remodel, and Tomasetti says he gets compliments on the store’s wallpaper nearly every day—but he rarely shares that it’s constructed out of decals.

Arbor’s Natural Look

During November 2005, Bob Carlson and Chris Jensen carved off a 500-square-foot space from the 3,000-square-foot headquarters of their boardsports company, Arbor, to create their first venture in retail. Their goal was to build a boutique that would tell the story of their 11-year-old business, which produced snowboards, skateboards and apparel made out of environmentally friendly materials such as bamboo. Their boutique also is called Arbor.

As they embarked on their project, the two men, who developed carpentry and woodworking skills before starting Arbor in 1995, looked for advice from their circle of friends and business associates.

Some of the best advice came from their bamboo suppliers, such as Plyboo in San Francisco. The company had started producing wall panels and recommended giving the panels a try. So the Arbor owners purchased the panels made from the same material used to build their boards. Then they cut them to fit their store space and glued them onto the already existing walls of the building.

They also took some flooring, made from caramelized bamboo strand that is also used to make their boards, and glued it on the building’s floor. For the cash wrap and shelves, they used Hawaiian koa wood that was made out of reclaimed wood from their board production.

It took more than two months to put the shop together, according to Carlson. They used friends, family and the people who work at their company to pitch in with labor. Payment was often pizza, beer and some Arbor product. “It’s amazing what you can trade for a snowboard,” Carlson said.