LA Shopping- PART 2

Phew! I am back from a whirlwind trip to LA. Despite a bad cold I picked up while I was away, I had a fantastic time checking out the City of Angels. As I explored LA, I tried to avoid all the name brand stores and instead head to some of the smaller  boutiques in different areas. Car definitely needed! As promised, here is the PART 2 of my LA shopping trip: Santa Monica, Venice Beach and Brentwood.

Since it's hard to take pics in the smaller boutiques (my sneak shots always end up blurry, or of my feet), I've decided to show a few things that I purchased along the way instead...

VENICE

Aviator Nation- Once a solely a collection of surf and skate ts, Aviator Nation has opened their first headquarters location on Abbott Kinny Blvd in Venice Beach. The bright blue store has a straight out of California vibe with 70s music spinning on vinyl, arcade games, ping pong tables and a small stage outside. While I am probably outside of their target age range, I couldn't help but love the vintage inspired T's, sweatshirts, corduroy shorts and gear. Oh and did I mention the surf coozie you get when you purchase a T?

Skylark: If I lived in Venice Beach, this small, hipster boutique filled with fantastic finds would be my go-to for neutral pieces. The alt-country store has a distinctly California feel to it with fedoras sitting next to an awesome selection of Frye boots. I picked up a cotton heather brown t-shirt dress, a faux tan leather bomber jacket and an awesome chain necklace all for what I would have expected to pay for one item downtown.

Surfing Cowboys- I love this store so much that I'm going to mention it twice (look for the complete review on their vintage collection tomorrow). In truth, I knew about it before heading to Venice, in fact it's one of the reasons I went out there. Filled with cool vintage long boards, surfing magazines, books and mid century furniture, this shop feels more like your uncle's cool California living room than a vintage store. Shop owner, Wayne Gunther was on hand to give me thoughts on his favorite surfing books and encouraged me to sit and thumb through the books at my leisure. (I ended up with the one he recommended a fabulous history of surfing printed in the 80s).

SANTA MONICA/ BRENTWOOD

Sugar Paper Los Angeles- My friend Tara, from the fantastic Prippy Handbook, first got me into letterpress cards at Greenwich Letterpress in the West Village. While shopping the adorable Brentwood Country Mart, I ran across Sugar Paper Los Angeles. I'm not joking when I say I spent about 40 minutes pursuing this pint sized space. I wanted to walk out with just about one of everything, but narrowed my selections to a few cards, a craft paper to do list and a box of quirky thank you cards. Maybe this will inspire me to write more...

And a few I wished I could have purchased items from...

Undrest by the Sea- This whitewashed swimsuit and luxury lingerie boutique has just the right amount of charm and style with a touch of girlishness. It's the perfect beachy compliment to the urban, preppy Jack Spade next store. I adored the chevron bathing suits hanging on the fence outside and the soft cotton cover-ups. While contemplating the snowy winters ahead, it was hard to think about buying a new bathing suit, but I'll definitely be back to Undrest by the Sea come summertime.

Tortoise General Store: This store is sort of like the California cousin of Muji in NYC. It's smaller, softer and packed with just as much Japanese design goodness. Perfect for picking up a gift for a friend, or neighbor who waters your plants while you're away. Be sure to check out their online shop.

Apartment Number 9- An incredible men's store in Brentwood Country Mart. Among designers like Band of Outsiders, Rag & Bone, they sell Rouge's Gallery T's from Portland, Maine (a fav!). The owner also told me to celebrate their Apartment Number 9's 9th B'day, Rogue's Gallery has designed a limited edition number 9 tee. If you're in LA, pick one up for me!

Since most of Sat was devoted to checking out vintage stores in the area, look for LA Shopping Part 3- Vintage tomorrow...