Global Trend Report '08 - Los Angeles

Try to put the typical LA tanned, fake-boobed, scumbag Hollywood types out of your mind for a moment. Let’s direct our attention instead to the younger and much cooler Echo Park/Los Feliz kids. You’ll most likely find them all squeezed together at a sleazy karaoke bar in Korea Town at 4 AM, arms around each other, cheerily singing the theme song from

Arthur

(“If you get caught between the moon and New York Ciiiity”) at the tops of their lungs.

For girls, the younger and cuter you can make yourself look, the better. Throw together a pair of frilly ankle socks with open-toed heels and the shortest dress you can find and you’re gold. These girls all went to private school, have lots of money, and love brands like Jovovich-Hawk, Anna Sui, and Vivienne Westwood. They’ll also wear chunky high heels by Chloé with every outfit even if it kills them.

Then you have your earthy/folksy girls. Grandma dresses are huge out West and these girls know where to find them for literally nothing. The closer their duds resemble a multicolored potato sack, the better. This look is best pulled off with a pair of strappy leather sandals or brown, old-lady, orthopedic-type shoes. Maybe even throw in a pair of high-waisted mom shorts to mix things up every now and then. It sounds awful but damn if they don’t pull it off. These gals always hail from Northern Cali or random states like Tennessee, and they like to participate in sing-alongs and drop acid in the desert.

For guys there are a lot of similarities between the different looks. First and foremost, they like to wear skintight jeans from APC. It’s basically a crime to shop anywhere else for denim. And prepare for lots of dirty looks if you try to wear anything with a waistline that drops below your ass. Every now and then a guy will put on a pair of thick, black-rimmed Buddy Holly glasses (without prescription lenses, of course) in order to achieve “the dorky/funny guy” look that most young LA girls swoon over. Most of these kinds of guys are either guitarists in a rock bands or sensitive writers. They love movies like

The Long Goodbye

and listen to lots of Belle and Sebastian in their downtime. They also tend to have small bottles of Johnnie Walker (Black Label only!) hidden in their inside jacket pockets.

Photos: Travis Schneider; stylist: Ivy Jarrin at Margaret Maldonado Agency; text: Annette Lamothe-Ramos. Boys: Kyler Aszterbaum shirt from Scout, Cheap Monday jeans, Puma shoes, necklace from Xin; APC jacket, Rodan vs. Griffith shirt and jeans, Converse shoes; Fred Perry sweater, Morphine Generation shirt, Levi’s jeans, Gram Design sneakers. Girls: Bridgid Catiis dress, Alexander McQueen sandals, necklaces by White Trash Charms, Lachana, and Crunchy Jewels, earrings from Xin, hat from Urban Outfitters, Revolver dress, Betsey Johnson socks, Pierre Hardy shoes, all jewelry by White Trash Charms; L’ecole des Femmes shirt, sass & bide shorts, Robert Geller suspenders, Pierre Hardy shoes, Jessica Elliot bracelets, White Trash Charms earrings.