Made in Los Angeles

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2:12Hello and welcome to Fashion People. I'm Lauren Sherman, writer of Puck's Fashion and Beauty Memo Line Sheet. And today with me on the show is Avery Truffleman. host of articles of interest. We're talking about her new series with Derek Guy, the charms of Los Angeles apparel, the challenges for the row, and so much more. Happy Tuesday, everyone. Hope you had a great week. This episode is long, so I'm going to shut up and just get going with it. Read line sheet. Lots of interesting stuff happening now. Might be some big news this week. If I'm lucky, we'll talk soon. Avery Truffleman, welcome back to Fashion People.

2:54It's such an honor to be here. Thank you for being here. How's your summer going? It's okay. It's okay. I was just reporting a story in beautiful Boise, Idaho, which is amazing. Have you ever been? No, but I always like reference it when I'm trying to talk about middle America. I often am like, you know, in Boise, Idaho. It's heaven, dude. It's like incredible. And it's so queer and cute. And all the food is good. and the vintage is amazing. And whenever people are like, are you enjoying yourself? I'd be like, this is incredible. Why didn't anyone tell me? And they're like, yeah, don't tell anyone.

3:29So I'm telling you and I'm telling everyone. Boise is amazing. Maybe I'll go next summer. I love the Midwest and the West West. Yeah, this is West West. It was fantastic. And swimming holes everywhere, Boise. Oh man, swimming holes. No, I love water that is not attached to sand. that that's so funny. I was with my friend who was also like, this is perfect. I hate sand. I want all the beaches to be paved over. Like you don't like sand, but you like crystal clear water that feels like it was poured out of an Evian bottle. Boise. Wow. Next summer. I want it. Can I ask what the, what you're reporting on or it's, it's top secret still.

4:12A little secret. I don't, I'm doing it for the economists. So I don't know what their policy is. I feel for me, I'd be like that, that, that, I'll tell you all about it. That's cool, though. Interesting. I can't wait. It's fun to be with a British bloke being like, this is America. But Boise made me very proud of America. Everyone was so nice and it was so beautiful. I was like, this country is pretty great. Fascinating. Yeah, I mean, it is. It is. There are some really amazing things about it, including the train. Abortion is not legal in the state. Like, you know, there's a lot of stuff you have to look over.

4:45Oh, man. The city of Boise rocks. That's awesome. Thank you for this travel log. I appreciate it. You have been busy this summer, so you have a new podcast, right? Tell me about it. Yeah, I'm really excited. It's a podcast with Derek Guy, like the Twitter menswear guy, Derek Guy. I believe he's been on Fashion People, right? You know, he has not been on Fashion People, but I have interviewed him many times. I did a Q &A with him for Line Sheet. He and I have a bit of a... there's like a tension when we talk. I don't know if he could, I should ask him to come on, but I think he gets like a little defensive because I'm like, who are you?

5:30He's used to battling for Twitter every single day. You know, he's like girded for battle. Although we have a unique relationship because we met a long time ago and we met in person, like every time we've met up in person. And so we started, And I think he is so knowledgeable about basically everything. I cannot tell you how many times I've turned to him and just asked for how something is made or the history of a given thing. He has so much knowledge. And we have made a podcast that only has one episode so far, but we've banked a couple where we are reading classic works of fashion philosophy that people reference all the time, including us.

6:16that we've never actually read, like Veblen, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, people, or George Simmel. Like, people love to mention these things. Fashion is spinach. Yes, well, okay, we're going off of this book, this academic reader called The Rise of Fashion. I've never read that. Well, I knew I wanted to do this podcast with Derek because I was like, oh, I have this academic reader. And he was like, me too. And we're both holding it in our hands. And we're like, I guess we'll go through sequentially. You two and David Marks have it. I bet. I'm ordering it for myself right now. I'm not as smart as you guys, but I can fake for a minute.

6:54No, I have never read any of these guys. I have not heard of most of them. And to your point about fashion is spinach, they're woefully, they're like no women. It's all white men. Interesting. But it does feel like a way of sort of getting the basics out of the way. And then who knows, hopefully we'll continue to like talk about all the other contributions from literally everybody else. But it's very interesting because the readings start in 1705, like before capitalism. And so it's very interesting to watch these approaches to clothing and fashion and luxury develop over time before they've consolidated into, well, I mean, the way we think about fashion and clothing is always in flux, but it's interesting to like read these early philosophers thinking about them.

7:49Yeah, that's fascinating. I'm really excited to dig in. And the first episode, what is it about? It is about a book I have never heard of. And in the introduction to it, it was like the most seminal. The editor was like, this is the most seminal book since the Leviathan. It's so important. I was like, really? I've never heard of this. It's called Fable of the Bees by this guy, Bernard Mandeville. And it started as a little nursery rhyme. He was a Dutch guy who moved to England. And he was a medical doctor. And to make money, he translated fairy tales. And then he thought, I'm going to make my own fairy tale.

8:31And he made this little fairy tale that rhymes, literally in rhyming couplets. and it's all about a beehive that everybody gets along really well because everybody is terrible. Like everybody is selfish and vain and acquisitive. Sounds like the fashion industry. That's the thing. And then they pray for all the vice to go away and the whole hive collapses. And this was like the first book. Well, it wasn't a book. It was a little rhymey pamphlet, but it was the first, one of the earliest ideas, one of the earliest, I should say, treatises that was like, sin is maybe not so bad, guys. Like sin is what, vanity and pride is what makes us buy clothes.

9:19And it's what makes us support small businesses. And it's very funny because it has these seeds of like trickle down economics in there, of greed is good, of all this stuff that will come later. But at the time, it was completely blasphemous. Mandeville was called Man Devil. He was banned from the church. And then the thing that is so funny to me is after he published this poem, people reacted very poorly to it, of course. They were like, why are you saying that sin is good? That's really bad. And he was like, what? You want the church to – the church would have you just sit in a room doing nothing, eating bad food, not dressing well, not supporting anyone.

9:58all these virtues that the church, I don't know, elevates are not actually good for society. And then he just kept writing these defenses of his weird take for the rest of his life. He kept putting out pamphlet after pamphlet, kind of, it felt like clapping back at trolls, honestly. And it got more and more annoying the more I read. I like wanted him to stop the more I read into his defense of this weird argument, which is kind of proof that people have always been this way even before Twitter just wanting to make weird takes and defend them yeah but yeah I'd never heard of this thing before and it was really interesting to consider that's fascinating and it's available through sub stack it's available through sub stack but you can find it on the podcatcher of your choice if you go to articles of interest.substack.com slash listen.

10:53It's not exactly intuitive, but that's fine. People will do it for you. So back to this. It's interesting because there is this and one of I wanted to chat with you about Los Angeles apparel and intern American apparel today anyway, which is kind of an example of this. I do think without how you need tension to make things interesting. And that's a great, I went to, so this weekend, I'm in Los Angeles this week. I, on Saturday after, it's been extremely humid here, which is not the typical in LA. It's usually extremely dry. So I can handle 100 degrees in dry heat. I'm fine. 100 degrees, and look, humidity here, it's relative.

11:43It's still not that humid. But no, but any humidity, it's like a blanket. It's horrible. And so it's kind of been like, what do you do in the afternoon? Like I keep taking my kid to the playground and there's no one there. Like we went on a hike, like a quote unquote hike, like a flat walk up by the Rose Bowl. And there was like no one there. It's just no one doesn't. So I said to my husband, I was like, because a friend of mine in Paris wanted me to she She wanted to ship a bunch of Los Angeles apparel T-shirts to my house and me bring them back to her in Paris. And I was like, you know what?

12:19I said to my husband, why don't we just go to this factory store? Which is in, it's on 59th Street, south of downtown Los Angeles. Dove Charney, who is the founder of Los Angeles apparel, also the founder of American Apparel. He, the factory is next door. It's a 300 ,000 square feet factory store. Then he also occupies another warehouse building that is the quote unquote flea market, which has like vintage and a bunch of like leftover stuff. And then there is a shipping warehouse. So it's basically this strip. And I've been to these kinds of places. My husband was like, what is this? So we go to this giant store.

13:04I kind of want to go to that. It is amazing. it was like I said to my husband I'm like you know what we I'm kind of feel bad we didn't go to Regan projects and see the show that I want to see that's ending this week but this was a cultural experience especially because at the end I had one of their it's it's great I couldn't figure out how many square feet I should have asked them but I didn't um how many square feet the actual store is, but it's giant. And it's like going to the American apparel on Halston Street in 2009, except eight times the size. And essentially, I was talking to someone who has a wholesale account with them because a lot of the business of Los Angeles apparel and the reason Dove has been able to keep it going and employ all these people, which he does, whatever you think about him and and his the vices yeah um he employs a lot of people they love him he's a good employer to these to these people who work in in this factory for the most part and it has been for over 20 years or probably 30 years at this point so but what he does is he doesn't have any minimums apparently like for certain accounts so if you want something he can just cut it and so i think what he's done with the store is like you it feels like almost you know how when you google something and something pops up on shein and it's like yes we have the exact thing you were looking for it's like you walk into the store and you're like i would like a leotard in um light peach and there's a leotard in light peach yeah like there is a triangle bra in every single color you could want in the world.

14:48There are jellies in 50 different colors. There are, so there's this one t-shirt. It's kind of unisex. It's the 1801. There are 58 colors. It is crazy. But was this nostalgia for you? Were you into American apparel? I was. In its heyday? Yeah. Like I wasn't dressing up on Halloween. I wasn't buying the LeMay. I was just going to say the gold LeMay. I was not doing that, but I wore the tri-blend. I used to wear the leggings and the tri-blend T-shirts to work. What a time. Which is so inappropriate. Like, it's so crazy. I can't believe no one ever said anything to me. I guess they just were like, we can't.

15:37But yeah, and I loved it. I thought it was such a smart idea. It was like this is it was the second it was the third coming of gap or whatever. Like I thought, oh, it's vertically integrated. I thought it was like really, really brilliant. And I still do to an extent. It was nostalgic, but it was also like I bought a bunch of stuff. I bought my kid stuff. I got my kid. Do you remember the the duffel bags? Yes. Yes, of course. I got myself a mini duffel bag in white to like carry around. and then I got my kid a duffel bag in purple with red handles in the shape of a whale. That's so cute. It's so cute.

16:19And then, look, a lot of it, I wrote a thing online sheet about it on Monday. It's interesting. Like, a lot of it, the sizing is wild. Like, you'd think he's sizing it for the GLP-1 era, but honestly, it's so tiny. Like I weigh, I, I like wear a size eight and I was an extra large in almost everything in women's. No. Whereas like if I go to ARCIT, I'm like a small in the short, the size small shorts are too small, big on me. Like it, it's, it's everything is very tiny. And I think it's just like, you're supposed to wear it. I don't know. But look, I ended up buying, what did I get? I got a pair of track shorts, a pair of like pull-on elastic shorts in men's and I bought a large in the men's.

17:15I got... But like do the track shorts, are they like bum shorts? Like do they actually cover any leg? No, but I bought the extra large. Like I could have bought the large. There wasn't a huge amount of difference, but they were just like I would and but that the hilarious thing is in the track shirts that they have a micro a micro version so I don't and I was just but I got the tractor like they are just because I have like I have tractors from Amazon that I wear around the house or whatever they're perfectly fine in the size extra large like in the large I could I could go out and would not be embarrassing but Lauren you're so the people's fashion journalist I love it but there was like like scrunchies there was do you remember the nail polish that that it's the exact same thing like the same bottles and everything um my god and i someone said i have not been to the store in new york yet i really need to go the next time i'm there someone said they were a bit disappointed in the store in new york i would say look like the stuff is nice i'm really happy with what I got.

18:24Not everything is it is a oh, and I bought like a bra and some underwear, like because they came in primary color. So it's just like, this is so fun. Yeah. Like it was a fun. And the other thing was it was really busy. Oh, I had to wait like 30 minutes. They gave me a pager for the and they had probably 10 changing rooms and I had to wait like 30 minutes tons of young people which I was really surprised because it's like I guess that that indie sleaze is like trendy but and I I asked the the girl at the front I was like what kind of people come in here she's like we get I said is it like people like me who shopped here when they were your age and she was like yeah we get all walks and it was it was crazy we saw like mother and daughters together it's wild so interesting yeah they sent me some stuff and i was really impressed i mean it's all very very very very tight like you gotta be down with the skin tight stuff but even hearing you talk about it like oh right like booty shorts and muscle tees and like fun that's so fun yeah And I love color.

19:43And I think that's the thing that is right about it. Like people want to wear and they don't want to like the T-shirts are 28 bucks and he's making them responsibly. And I believe that like whatever you're going to say about Dove, he's he's making them responsibly and treating those people well. And like I've been reporting on him for 15 years that I know. That's so interesting. I mean, I don't know how far down the rabbit hole you want to get with this, but I feel like I know so many people who've interacted with him. Like my first, my college boyfriend worked for them for a while and like Dove was there and scouted him out as a model.

20:26Like it was just a weird culture there. And I just wonder if he's changed stuff or if it truly is just a revival. I think he is a lot older. I mean, he must be 60. So I think there's probably less. I mean, that's the age of a lot of charismatic cult leaders. Yes. Look, this is what I said to my husband on the way home. I said he is like a cult leader. And because I've experienced it, I did a story on him, I think, in 2015 or 2016 when he was launching Los Angeles Apparel. And I went to the house in Echo Park, which I ended up moving like right down the block from it when we moved to L.A. Oh, my God.

21:10And I went up and there's all these beautiful young women walking around folding stuff. And and the thing about Dove to me that was always interesting because I knew a lot of people who worked for him because he often I don't know if they ever had a real publicist. He would often like the person that I dealt with all these years was a person who ran part of the business for him, who he recruited out of the Houston Street store when she was still in college. But the thing about him is he really he's smart and he always. Engaged and engaged smart women. On the male side, like the men I've interacted with, who he dealt with, not as smart.

21:54and I don't know what that says about Dove, but like the women that he, like the, everybody world founders worked for him. Like he always surrounded himself with incredibly intelligent women who he would empower. Like my, this person I know who became a good friend, she ran a whole region for him when she was like 26. And she really did it. It wasn't like he was like, yes, she's very attractive, but it wasn't like you're hot let me give you a fake job he was like you're hot and smart let me give you a real job look did this mean that this could be the way he managed things a giant business no but i think um it is very cultish and i understand it because his a lot of his ideas are right like the execution is complex and and but a lot of his like the base of what he he thinks is correct.

22:55And that is, I mean, he does a lot of the merch for a lot of the big companies and a lot of the big celebrities that he was working with Kanye for a long time. He's an interesting character that I think that the scale of Los Angeles apparel right now, where he has this store in New York, I have no idea how he funded that. I assume he has some investment um but he has this store in new york he has this um factory warehouse plus this other stuff i think this is the right scale for a person like him i don't think it could have ever become the next gap because of other limitations but it is very cult-like like it feels like interesting It feels like because I've I've felt his.

23:48Charm might be the wrong word, but I understand it like I could have like on principle. It's cool that someone could start at an entry level retail job and like ascend through the corporate ladder. It is very uniquely American and cool in theory. It's it's a shame. It's a shame that it couldn't work out. Yeah, I think it's another example of what is success. And maybe what this is right now is enough. Well, it reminds me a lot of what Mickey Drexler did with Alex Mill, that all of these titan merchants are like, I have a little brand now and I have only a few locations and this is what I do. Yes.

24:39And I think, I mean, the difference is Mickey is that that is that's, you know, I think probably will be a hundred million dollar business sooner than later. But it is the same in that he is doing it the way exactly the way he wants without the pressure from the outside to expand and all of that. but I think it it's fascinating it it was a it was I it was like in the end kind of a cultural experience and not just it's like when you say consumer culture is shopping culture or whatever is pop culture this was the perfect example of it and I do recommend taking a trip down there like it's it was fascinating I want to go my favorite picture of myself in my early 20s was wearing a pair American apparel LeMay black LeMay leggings dancing on stage at a girl talk show and I was like I did it I really did my time you really did what did they send you this time oh I'm boring now it was like one turtleneck please they had some cute mock turtlenecks yeah yeah it was it was great i don't okay i don't know if you'd want to include this but do you like did you know people who would shoplift from there i didn't but i i um i didn't know any i think i was a little too old for that okay it was like if was it was it big to shoplift from there that's funny yeah there's like that whole taolin story shoplifting from american apparel it was a known thing.

26:23And it was so weird because it never would have dawned on me in a million years. But if you were very cool looking, I remember friends of mine in Providence would go like RISD students would go and just shoplift from there. And they like wouldn't they'd be like, hey, and they'd take some things out and let them keep the rest. I was always like, was that a policy? Like what's going on? I just wonder if they've updated their shoplifting. Yeah, I I didn't see any security guards they did have a greeter though no yes who looked amazing she was a zombie style yes she was wearing a body suit but then her pants were really low so you could see her hips she looked so good I was like this is fun I had a great time they got the kid who um rung me up it was like what did he say it was so it was just like and they all asked me what are you up to today I was like well I'm gonna go to dinner and I was like what are you up to and they were like working that's so funny that's like a real question they must have have a have a prompt that you're supposed to ask totally my I was just talking to a friend of mine who used to work as a greeter at Abercrombie which is so funny because it was in London and he was he was just like you know his job was to be like sup and people in London don't really yeah ask like sup and he said he asked one lady who was coming in like hey sup and she said I'm going through a divorce and ran away oh my god I mean yeah they're they're probably inviting all kinds of things oh man you up to today what are you up to today um anyways great uh I had a great time I want to go I think you should go I really want Dove to come on the podcast i have asked him why wouldn't he i don't i think he's probably like i don't know i think he should do it but i don't know if he will fingers crossed for you i want to hear it would be really awesome yeah because we've just been through a lot together and and it would be it would be really fun but we'll see finding a therapist is hard enough but finding one who actually takes your insurance can feel completely impossible.

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29:24You can book an appointment as soon as tomorrow. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit rula.com slash fashion to get started. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash fashion. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget. It's Sophia with an F, Franklin with a Y, and if you're looking for some bubblegum dum-dum podcast, then you are in the wrong place, baby. Whether I'm reminiscing on the trials and tribulations of working in the corporate world to recapping today's latest reality TV show, you're going to want to pull up a chair and stick around.

30:07It's a good time and always 100 % unfiltered. Follow and listen to Sophia with an F wherever you get your podcasts. Moving on to another brand. that was founded in Los Angeles that I wrote about recently that I'm so curious for your take on it and its place in kind of fashion history and luxury and all that is, did a piece last week and I mentioned on the podcast on Friday on The Row. And it was kind of about The Row's sort of, I don't want to say accidental explosion during COVID, but it was definitely connected to the sort of athleisure, accidental athleisure explosion that happened during COVID and no one had anywhere to go.

31:04So it was like a combo of Phoebe Philo stopped in 2018. It gave the row more space to like take up that customer. And then on top of it, they make perfect essentials essentially. And so for people with a lot of money, if you wanted a pair of cashmere sweatpants or you wanted the perfect button down, or you wanted the perfect Teva slide that was actually a thousand bucks, you went to the row and they, at the beginning of the pandemic, they had some challenges, but then like they just exploded. Like it just became the first, the first for like a certain really fashion literate customer. It was like the first go-to brand.

31:50And it's interesting. I still think, I mean, they're still doing extremely well. You go on the website and there are tons of SKUs that are sold out. But I think, and during this period in 2024, they raised a bunch of money at a billion dollar valuation. They raised and they the the investors, including the Worthy family, imaginary ventures, the L 'Oreal, the Betancourt family, the Betancourt Myers own L 'Oreal, like and then also Lawrence Santo Domingo's fund. They took a little bit less than 40 percent at an over billion dollar valuation. This was they had raised more. They had raised money in the past, but I'd never been public about it.

32:34but this is like a big significant amount of money to, you know, do more retail to. But the thing with all those investors is they're not expecting an exit. But Thoreau, anytime soon, they are expecting this to be a long-term investment. Maybe it's 20 years, but it's worth it because this brand has grown for 20. It's almost, it's 20 years old, I think, this year. Wow. Yeah, it's amazing. And they've grown so carefully, been profitable almost every single year. huge reason for that is because mary k nashley olsen had money so they i think people that and it was their own money it wasn't their parents money so like it just creates a different culture of how you manage things you manage for the long term anyway i'll shut up in one second because i want want to hear from you but um no no i don't i'm i'm fascinated i've always been like what's up with the row especially when there are all those memes about the sample sales oh god yes so i think what happened last year was and i actually didn't mention this in the piece because i but like the sample sale became this like it became too much um people kind of got grossed out by it and then and complaining about it and then which is hard because that's a that's a customer acquisition tool for them if you want to talk in MBA speak like that's how you get someone who can't afford it to get in um and when they can't afford it 10 years later then they're loyal that type of thing um but but I think that has been tricky and then also there was an influencer who was like basically her whole life her whole influencer persona was being the row like being and now and she she felt rejected by the I she's she's lovely I think she was being like they don't owe her anything um but I and so whatever but she no longer wears the row and I'm like it doesn't look as good and but but anyway um the point being that there was suddenly this like resistance to what they were doing because a it got even more expensive than it was and b there are all these new ideas happening in fashion and as that happened they sort of retreated they made not only were their fashion shows no photos but they weren't releasing as many photos they they tightened up there they already like never did interviews and stuff which i actually think is the right approach but like all the other communication that they did was less.

35:15And then you have Phoebe Philo coming up with this idea of like, who's a much more original designer. She's not making the perfect version of something. She's making her version of something. Like a great example is they both did a fisherman's sandal, which they named the Phoebe, which I was like, they must have done this on purpose. And she made a fisherman's sandal. And her fisherman's sandal is like, theirs is very classic. hers is like it's like a fish they were both fishermen mary jane's hers is not classic it's trendy but it's so weird that it'll still look good in 10 years like she has the same thing mutual prada has which is like you can wear the stuff 10 years later even though it's trendy because it's like so good yeah yeah and it's just like why would i ever buy that fisherman sandal from them when you went when phoebe did it and it's like a million times cooler it's going to look so much better with jeans.