As Kitson sells its final novelty mugs and pithy sweatshirts, preparing for the close of its roster of West Coast boutiques, we remember a time when shopping at the L.A. house of expensive kitsch truly meant something. The year was 2007. Sunglasses were big, preferably wraparound; waistlines were empire; spaghetti was a kind of strap; and the It bag was a furry chihuahua.
This was the year the final episodes of The O.C. (a TV drama about four well-to-do California teens who cured boredom with makeouts and shopping sprees) and The Simple Life (a reality show about two well-to-do California 20-somethings who cured boredom with makeouts and shopping sprees) would air. It was also the year we officially met the Kardashians. According to the unspoken rules of the cultural zeitgest, with enough excess, you, too, could become a celebrity and have whatever you wanted.
And if you were a celebrity, everything you wanted was at Robertson Boulevard’s Kitson. There was no better place to be famous, if that’s what you were looking for. This was a store where they literally rolled out the red carpet for celebrities who arrived ready to sort through piles of jeans, Juicy Couture track suits, and bedazzled T-shirts featuring their faces. Store hours weren’t something you had to worry about if, say, you were Britney Spears and you had the sudden urge for a new camouflage hat at 2 in the morning (anecdote based on real events). An open-floor plan, floor-to-ceiling windows, and clear glass doors invited the paparazzi and your throngs of fans to document your every move and purchase. This meant that shopping was an event worth breaking out your curling iron for. And they did.
For Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, and Paris Hilton, strength, it seemed, came in numbers. Golden, Barbie-blonde hair and its matching extensions were given the ringlet treatment for even a quick bikini run, and only starlets who were secure with their staying power dared to veer on the side of brunette (see Victoria Beckham, Kim Kardashian, and Britney Spears).
If a pair of Dior sunnies deemed eye makeup an afterthought, it rendered a heavy application of nude lip gloss absolutely necessary. And everyone could agree that nothing looked better with those pale blue shopping bags than a uniform tawny spray tan. In honor of this store’s seminal mark on beauty, here we remember what it looked like to shop at Kitson.