Home > Los Angeles Style > Style Review > Spotlight on: Steven Alan

Sure as spring, each year you forget to purchase a respectable outfit for Easter Sunday—something that will cover your tattoos when you meet your girlfriend’s parents, for example.

Now guys with pastel material needs—and the women who love them—can rejoice at the opening of the Steven Alan store on Robertson Blvd. Alan’s particular ethos of prepster-casual chic fits well in L.A., and that’s saying something, given that the brand is practically synonymous with New York.

The new outpost is intentionally located on a low-key northern stretch of the famous shopping street. The small, unpretentious shop is furnished with rustic vintage accouterments and exudes the effortless charm for which Alan is known. (That, of course, and his signature reverse-seam shirts.)

For men, Steven Alan offers suits, T-shirts, shorts and a shoe line by L.A.-based label the Generic Man (best known for soles designed to defiantly never wear down).  While the women’s line is not yet fully realized, Steve Alan-ettes can find cotton dresses, comfy T-shirts and a selection of charming fitted button-downs. Patterned, ruffled cotton underpants are immensely popular and girlishly sexy—even if they seem like something some of us wore under our first-grade pinafores.

With only a few other brands sprinkled into the mix, this store is (unsurprisingly) primarily a showcase for the visionary that is Steven Alan. The designer—also known for discovering and showcasing emerging design talent such as Ella Moss and Twinkle by Wenlan—stocks the wholesale showroom with top-selling Simon Miller as its resident denim brand. Accessories include delicate jewelry lines, vintage eyewear, organic cotton skinny ties, tote bags and even Rolexes (starting at around $3,000).

Less stuffy than J. Crew, yet more sophisticated than Abercrombie and Fitch, Steven Alan offers enough variety to keep you and yours in checks, stripes and plaids all year. As the first Steven Alan store outside of New York—though an Abbot Kinney outpost is scheduled to open in an old post office sometime in May—it serves L.A. well as the place for the rumpled preppy look.

Add a comment