Fashion : Old Pasadena: A Retail Frontier : North Raymond Avenue a Hub of Upscale Bustle
“It’s not like the Melrose Avenue je suis artiste mentality,” Elizabeth Bradford said as she flitted about her dress shop, Cattlebone. She was talking about North Raymond Avenue in particular and Old Pasadena in general.(Some people call the area Old Town, but, the city’s Chamber of Commerce insists, that’s too common a term. Every old city has an Old Town, they say.) This is the most ancient commercial district in a place where all things historical are treated as if they were sacred.
Bradford is one of the new wave of retail pioneers lured to the area by promises of great things to come. When she arrived five years ago, there was only the sugarcoating of semigloss enamel on a few of the old buildings. Now, most of the stores are leased for “upscale” business, the transients have all but disappeared, and the fleabag hotels have been transformed to high-tech office environments.
Old Pasadena lies in wait, perching prettily on the edge of discovery. And shoppers in search of it might want to start on North Raymond Avenue, the hub of the district.
From there it’s worth wandering toward the area’s border streets--Arroyo Parkway on the east and Pasadena Avenue on the west, Walnut Street on the north and Del Mar Boulevard on the south. Bradford wants there to be no confusion: All of Old Pasadena lies to the east of the Arroyo Seco and is not to be confused with all that lies to the west.
Suit by Shamask
“I try and stay away from trendy things,” she said of the clothes and fashion accessories in her store. She fondled a rhinestone-studded dinosaur, a plastic stegosaurus, that dangled from a black chain-link necklace. “My clients are the kind of women who don’t need to go to Beverly Hills for a label.” But maybe some have considered it. Peeking out from behind Bradford was a mannequin draped in an amber-colored linen suit by Ronaldus Shamask, a very “West Side” designer name indeed.
“They’re women who have flair and a sense of humor,” she explained of her customers. Women who love the hand-dyed, Chantilly lace skirts of Los Angeles designer Bryan Emerson. And women who get a kick out of evening bags that are totally encrusted with jewels outside and completely lined with white feathers.
Bradford may avoid trendiness, but her shop is certainly eclectic and filled with one-of-a-kind items. She has managed a retail maneuver already proven successful for Melrose retailers.
Cattlebone is located in the two-digit block of North Raymond Avenue, between Holly and Union streets, where the revival going on is the most apparent in all of Old Pasadena. It has local landlords rubbing their hands in profit-making glee.
The new tourist trade is actually causing some of the retailers to refocus their stores. Susie O’Neil, who owns Princes, a resale clothing shop, found it was becoming less resale and more retail as Raymond Avenue changed. Now, most of the merchandise in her stockpile of status Judith Leiber and Bottega Veneta handbags, Maud Frizon shoes and Giorgio Armani suits for men is new. Her best prices, though, remain in the resale category. Last week she sold a pair of Calvin Klein alligator shoes that were originally priced at $495 for $29.
The very first of North Raymond Avenue’s nouvelle-chic arrivals was the Cafe Jacoulet. The pioneer owners now recall, when the doors opened more than five years ago the area was not a safe place for dining, or even walking. Still, Robert Simon, one of the cafe’s four owners, could feel the area’s potential.
“The buildings are great, and the city pledged to create a wonderful environment,” Simon recently recalled. One recent lunchtime at Cafe Jacoulet had a crowd waiting for tables, many of them carefully coiffed blondes, who arrived in charge-card-carrying threesomes, to shop the street.
Moves Across Street
As the area tones up, some established shops have found themselves scuttling for a safe haven from escalating rents. One of the victims, antique store owner Lee Martin of the Carriage Trade, had to pack up her vintage dolls and doll buggies and move them across the street.
Since then, business has been good. Increased traffic hasn’t hurt, she says. And doll collecting is in the midst of a renaissance similar to that of Old Pasadena.
In between impromptu lectures on dolls, including her unusual, French and German-made examples, as well as descriptions of the price differential between open- and closed-mouth dolls (the open-mouth varieties are far more expensive), Martin graciously credits the surge in her business to Cafe Jacoulet, the establishment that usurped her original shop. She also believes that Barbra Streisand has had an influence on business in the area. Martin said Streisand, a vintage-clothing and furniture enthusiast, “made coming to these shops very popular.”
Don’t expect to play star search on Raymond Avenue. Celebs have been known to put in appearances, but most of the crowd is more well-heeled than well-known.
Across the street from Cattlebone sits another popular store, Edward Turrentine’s Design Center Antiques. His 18th-Century French furniture and antique Chinese Foo dogs attract the same San Marino and Pasadena clients as Cattlebone. With his brand of labels--Louis XVI, Seth Thomas and Sevres--Turrentine has even managed to entice the Beverly Hills crowd to cross the river.
Crammed With Goodies
The Design Center Antiques building, which used to house a printing shop, is crammed with goodies that represent four centuries. Huge Venetian blackamoor torcheres rub shoulders with 6-foot gilded putti. And a five-piece Louis XVI furniture set, with arm chairs and love seat covered in the original Gobelin tapestry fabric, cozy up to a rare 19th-Century Chinese opium bed.
Turrentine’s is the largest store on the block, yet it’s bursting at the seams. Shoppers leave there after hyperventilating and squeezing their way through the labyrinth of furniture settings. Shop personnel report: “This is nothing; there’s twice as much in the basement.”
Turrentine’s scope is broad, but other Raymond Avenue merchants have a single-minded, specialty approach to business. Planet 10, for example, is a book, card and gift store that caters to fantasy and the playfully grotesque--a sort of Hallmark Shop of Horrors.
Here you’ll find Stephen King books, Dragonquest board games, Primus and Demon comic books, and a stuffed dragon that store owner Sharon Foster sees as a cross between the late ventriloquist Wayland Flowers’ talking puppet, “Madame,” and the actress Cher. There are original illustrations for fantasy book covers and even a selection of jewelry. Noteworthy is a horror of a bracelet-and-ring combination in chain mail, the sort that TV vampire Elvira might wear.
Tucked back into a space that was formerly the Thieves Market is one of Old Pasadena’s greatest champions, Jan Louis. From her one-room shop, Jan’s Collections, she sells, buys and trades 19th- and 20th-Century paintings and hands out maps that locate all the antique shops in the area.
Most Merchants Pleased
Most of the merchants are quite pleased with Old Pasadena’s new look. There are some grumblings from earlier settlers, but for many the transition to trendy can’t happen fast enough.
Neil claims it’s the entrepreneurial spirit that has made North Raymond Avenue Old Pasadena’s most come-hither attraction.
“It’s the individuals that are making it blossom,” she said, “one flower at a time.”
It’s an appropriate sentiment for this little enclave in a town famous for its roses.
