It's gonna be a good day when breakfast is at 12:45 with Chris Black at Lulus, which happens to be next door to our first stop, Standard Goods. Yeah, as you can tell by the name, it's a shop that boasts well-made things, probably done so in America. But, if you're going to do another shop like this, you better do it better than Standard Goods, because they've got it down. As if the finely-curated assortment of goods wasn't enough, their taste in vintage art puts this place over the edge. I still need to go back and drop the well-worth-it $300 for the pencil sketch of the little girl playing with a gun.
The only thing better than looking at weird odds and ends, usually found accompanying contemporary menswear shops, is looking at furniture. Yeah, I said it. Along with Environment on Beverly Blvd, Cisco Brothers is one of my favorite spots for this. Vintage textiles matched and wrapped around reclaimed pieces and mixed with vintage and handmade goods has got the entire store looking like the physical manifestation of my living room in heaven.
What Fairfax is to street wear kids, La Brea, north of 3rd, is to bloggers. Between Union LA, Shelter Half, Feal Mor, WGACA, American Rag and General Quarters, this stretch is your favorite blogger's favorite real estate developer's favorite block.
General Quarters, owned and operated by my buddy, Blair, has brands you won't find anywhere else in LA, along with my favorite candle by Manifest Destiny. Dude, you have a favorite candle? 'Fraid so.
Next door is Shelter Half, a commune-like space near and dear to my heart as I helped put the space together—physically. I built a few of the tables, with Blair, supporting hand made goods made in the USA, while pulling long shifts with friends banding together to get the shop open before Christmas. The shop boasts an ever-rotating collection of fine goods made by people who care about the final product they deliver because, well, their name is on it. Think Skateboards, recut and reshaped from discarded street decks, bread baked in a meat smoker right here in LA, goods from one of our favorite shops, RTH, and a long list including Crate, artwork by Brady Erickson, Save Khaki, Commune, Lambert and a whole lot more I'm forgetting, but love.
Somewhere in there we made a U-turn so I could hold up traffic and take a picture of this RS and stopped and got Spanish lattes at Urth 'cause we're out here like that.
And we finished it out with a personal tour of the new DANIELE BALICE AND JAY EZRA NAYSSAN show, and the private collection, at M+B gallery in Beverly Hills.
Nicholas Maggio is a writer and photographer living in Los Angeles. See more of his photography here, read his blog, A Time To Get, here and follow him on Twitter here.
