Los Angeles isn’t necessarily the first place you think of when it comes to menswear. There are a handful of good shops - Mohawk, Ghiaia, Denim Doctors - but it probably wouldn’t feature in a top list of destination cities when there’s London, Tokyo, New York and several across Europe.
Yet there are deep menswear roots. California is the origin of denim, after all, and much associated workwear. Western clothing has always been here, and this is where it became mainstream. Sportswear, too, was arguably invented in California, when off-duty fashion first developed after the second world war.
Then there are subcultures like surfing, skateboarding and motorbiking, all of which developed in California and had an outsized influence on the world of menswear. There aren’t many influences left in fact, outside the military and tailoring.
The Permanent Style team spent a great week in Los Angeles recently, speaking to dozens of people about these things – vintage dealers and costume designers, craftsmen and menswear designers. I think it was probably the most productive trip we’ve ever done.
Early on, we identified some key themes.
Vintage, for example, has always been significant. It’s closer to the spirit of the way clothes are developed in LA than the more fashion-oriented approach in New York. There’s a reason the famous Rose Bowl flea market is here, and the higher-end event Inspiration, both of which were on the week we visited.
We managed to interview some great people such as Bob Melet and Zip Stevenson.
Then there’s Hollywood, which has an influence on local fashion, pulls from the vintage scene, and feeds into local makers. We talked to Mark Bridges (Oscar winner for Phantom Thread) and Jenny Eagan (Knives Out and others), and heard in Anto Shirts quite how film budgets match to bespoke shirts.
LA is by far the biggest centre for clothing manufacturing in the US, and it’s how a lot of brands get started here – doing a lot of sampling because the workshops are so accessible. Our best visit in that regard was Lady White, who have always made such a big thing about local production, especially the dye houses.
And on retail side, we looked particularly at personal shopping. It’s a huge part of the way menswear works here - tailoring brands said up to half of their sales go through personal shoppers.
In fact, in LA it seems a bit of a flex to have a personal shopper, whereas in most of Europe you can’t help feeling it would be a bit of an embarrassment – as in, don't you know how to dress yourself?
How about LA style? Well a friend of ours, usefully, had just moved to LA from New York, and was in the process of adapting and observing the way friends and colleagues dressed.
“The weather is the most obvious thing,” he said. “You have more sun and milder weather year round – fewer extremes. That makes things quite relaxed and easy, helped by the fact you’re rarely walking anywhere.
“But there’s also something grander than that – the city is open, you have these big skies. It’s a particularly stark contrast to New York, which is so built up and vertical.
“If I had to capture it in one piece of clothing, I’d say I wear 90% blue jeans here, where I wore 90% black jeans in New York. Blue denim feels more natural, laid back and lighter. A T-shirt and jeans feels not just easy but appropriate.”
When we asked a shop manager friend of ours, he picked a different garment – the suede overshirt. “We sell more of that type of garment here than anywhere else, by miles,” he said. “And it makes sense – an LA guy wants a bit of luxury, a bit of cool, but also wants to be super comfortable and relaxed. Suede does that rather than leather, and an overshirt better than a jacket.”
Man, it’s so fun exploring these things. When you travel and interview people, every conversation becomes about what the city’s like, because you’re seeing it for the first time. It's about where people live and why, where they hang out, whether you’d ever want to live there. It’s the same when people come to London.
I didn’t think I’d like LA at all. I’m a cultural European at heart – I like old cities, old culture, exploring on two feet. LA is the opposite of all that.
But the longer we were there, and the more we saw different parts, the more it grew on me. Reyner Banham, who I’ve been reading, calls it the first post-urban civilisation. Aldous Huxley said the city is “nineteen suburbs in search of a metropolis”.
However you put it, the point is don’t think of it in the same way as a normal, centred city. If you just saw Hollywood and Downtown you’d have a very different impression from if you spent your time in Pasadena or Venice Beach. The problem is that if you’re a tourist, Hollywood and Downtown might actually be where you focus.
Of course, I’d love to hear about all this from readers in LA, although we also spoke to scores of them while we there, at various events and just in the street.
And of course it’s the people that make everything. Yuki from Yuketen conducting an impromptu photo shoot on Redondo Beach. Dan, Wyatt and Max from the Buck Mason design team showing us exactly 27 different types of chambray shirt. Cody Wellema taking us to where his hat shop used to be, but also the brand new (and incredible) restaurant next door, Betsy’s.
It’s about the people, then about the clothes. OK they're a close second.
I bought a great, knackered old Lee Storm Rider at Rose Bowl. I got some shorts at Buck Mason that I’ve been living in. I ordered a hand-knitted cardigan from Chamula that is definitely not right for the weather, but is sitting proudly in my room as a souvenir.
Over the coming weeks there will be two or three short LA articles on PS, but the main substance is being saved for the magazine in the autumn. It’s going to be very cool.
Thank you to everyone who generously hosted us and put up with us, from all of us. We’re already talking about when we can come back.
