Shop at the End of One Woman's Eat Pray Love Story
Laura Abeyta, second from right, celebrates with band Downtown Train in front of new store Vanity Room
When the economy got really tough in 2009, entrepreneur Laura Abeyta closed her boutique (H)armonie on Los Angeles’ Abbott Kinney Boulevard.
Competition was fierce on the bustling retail street, and consumer spending seemed to come to a halt that year. She left her other Los Angeles store, Vanity Room, in her manager’s capable hands and took a timeout in Bali, the South Pacific island portrayed as a destination for enlightenment seekers in the film and book Eat Pray Love.
Abeyta had a moment of self-realization on the island, and it was this: She is a retailer and a designer of fashion. She would do it no matter what side of the globe she was on. She opened a store called Retail Therapy in the Balinese town of Ubud, where she sold Los Angeles fashions to Western tourists and Balinese locals. She also started manufacturing a line of women’s fashion, also called Retail Therapy. But Los Angeles beckoned.
A 1,700-square-foot space opened on Culver City’s lively Main Street. It was one of the Los Angeles area’s few thoroughfares with steady pedestrian traffic, with its bustling bars and restaurants and roving street musicians. She thought it was perfect place to open a second location of Vanity Room. On August 18, she produced a debut party for her new boutique, Vanity Room, at 3830 Main St. in Culver City. It offers lines Black Halo, Jessica Simpson and Plenty by Tracy Reese.
Business might be easier in Culver City than Abbot Kinney—for a while. “I have not had to compete with anybody for lines,” she said, looking out of her store at steady streams of people walking Main Street. “That will change in the future.”
