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store owner Lisa Kline |
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Spotlight: LA's Lisa Kline, owner of hip, celebrity magnet boutique by the same name...
FACTIO MAGAZINE: Describe your signature style.
LISA KLINE: My everyday style is casual, jeans and tanks with sexy heels, or a cute pair of sweats with cool jewelry. For night, jeans, a great pair of Dolce & Gabbana heels, and a sexy top. My signature style is LA style, relaxed, casual but totally sexy and put-together.
FM: Define the style in LA.
LK: LA style is sexy but casual. Around here, the look of your outfit depends on your shoes—you can dress anything up with a great pair of heels. Jeans and a tee-shirt worn with thongs is casual, but pair the same jeans and tee with a sexy heel, and your look is instantly dressed-up. I love the beachy-casual style of Malibu—bathing suits with cute raps and thin, gauzy materials.
LA has no seasons so dressing is just easier all year long. Growing up here, I never felt that there were style rules that I had to follow, unlike other places where style is somewhat dictated by the change of seasons. It’s great to live in a place where there are no style rules according to climate. When you don’t have to think about the weather because it’s basically always summer, you don’t worry about what you can’t or shouldn’t wear.
FM: What woman (from which city worldwide) have great style and why? And where is your favorite place to travel?
LK: Cameron Diaz has great LA style, casual and beachy, but put-together with great accessories.
Gwyneth Paltrow has great New York style, she always looks pretty, classy, and really seems to have a good sense of her own individual style.
Penelope Cruz is always gorgeous with a spicy style that comes from her Spanish roots.
Catherine Zeta-Jones always carries herself in such a confident and classy way, and has a very European sense of style.
What is similar about all these women is that they have their own unique style. Their taste is vastly different, but refined in their own ways. They are all very clearly comfortable in whatever they wear. They don’t just put on whatever their stylists put on them, unlike many celebrities. They have a great style all there very own and don’t rely on stylists.
One of my favorite places to travel is Mexico. I love to dress in Mexico: hot and sexy, since the temperature is always hot. I love easy little dresses and thongs, bathing suits and little else. I go there to relax, with no phone and no television, just time to swim and scuba dive and go off on the boat, stay in a five-star hotel and basically just take time to pamper myself. And I love Petron! Good tequila and cerveza in a remote place where I can just relax.
FM: According to you, which lady (past or present) has impeccable style and why?
LK: Coco Chanel is truly a style icon. In her time she was on the cutting edge, her look was powerful and is still the epitome of classic style. She was her own person, her style was truly her own and what she was really all about. She was basically just married to herself and her work, and so many people from around the world across decades have emulated her style. She was truly the trendsetter of her time.
FM: Do you think money and style go hand in hand or can style never be bought? Is it something you just have?
LK: You can have good style and not have money, but money makes it much easier! It’s less frustrating when you have money. You can have great taste and want stylish things, but people with a lot of money who could easily afford stylish things don’t necessary have great style. It has to be in you.
FM: What key fashion pieces do you always have in your wardrobe? What’s selling like crazy right now at Lisa Kline?
LK: I always have the basics: white wife beaters, g-string underwear, Charlotte beach pants in every color, Juicy sweatsuits, Bernardo thongs, C&C tees, lots of great-fitting denim and cashmere sweaters.
Denim is always selling like crazy: Joe’s and Farmer are hot right now. Rebecca Taylor, Theory, and tees by Splendid are always top-sellers. And splatter sweatsuits by Primp are still hot. Right now everybody wants vintage-looking logo tees and cropped pants.
FM: What is your biggest fashion vice?
LK: I’ll buy 20 of the same thing! If I like something I’ll buy a ton of it, one in every color, and when I get sick of it (which I sometimes do very quickly) I’ll end up giving it all away and thinking about how much money I wasted. It’s not just with clothes either, I do it with shoes, purses, everything!
FM: What are your favorite shops worldwide?
LK: Dolce & Gabbana on Madison Ave for shoes, Ralph Lauren on Madison Ave, the 4th floor for linens and home stuff, Kates Paperie in Soho, Barneys. I shop in New York because I never have the time when I’m in LA! Closer to home, my favorite shops are Curve and Vionett, my neighbors on Robertson Boulevard. They’re both funky, unique stores.
FM: What’s a fashion no-no when attending special events? Any tips for getting ready for an event?
LK: Either being too under-dressed or too over-dressed, either way you’re arriving not knowing the scene. You should always know what the vibe is at the event before you get ready.
FM: What would people be most surprised to know about you?
LK: That I walk around with a 200 lb dog, a Maluccan cockatoo on my shoulder, my 1-year-old daughter, and my husband and we WORK together—all day, every day. And you’re more likely to find an issue of Food and Wine or Parenting Magazine than the latest Vogue on my desk!
I work all day, then I come home and I cook, I train, I’m all over the place. But I love it, it’s all part of my life. I’m really just a down-to-earth valley girl!
FM: What are your own personal standards of beauty?
LK: I get waxed, religiously. I keep up my hair, get a mani pedi every week, but I’m basically pretty low-maintenance. I like to look good, but I’m not into the whole beauty product routine thing.
FM: Did you know when you opened Lisa Kline that the store would rise to the success that is has—a major shopping destination for celebrities and known coast to coast? At what stage did you realize the level of your success was changing? What advise and inspiration can you give women entrepreneurs?
LK: I had no idea, at 25 years old, I just knew that I wanted to have my own clothing store. It has been so successful really because It was always such a dream for me. It just is because it is, it is a gift. I’m just going with what works. I know that I’m a leader and not a follower, and that I don’t look to what other people are doing to see what direction I should take with my store. People copy me. I saw the rise in success of my store when I met my husband, and we essentially became partners. He encouraged me to expand the women’s store, and to make my men’s store more masculine, and to open a corporate office. It’s really been in the last year or so that the big changes started happening. Everything has evolved and changed on it’s own over the last few years.
In 2000, after the women’s store had been open for five years, I opened the men’s store. That’s when I realized that I couldn’t run two stores by myself and the company had to grow, so I took on the staff that I have now and found great people that I trust, and the company has just grown on it’s own from there. I let the store be what it wants to be. I listen to it. I’m a big risk taker, but I have always been confident in the risks I have taken.
My advise for anyone just starting out is: follow your heart, don’t listen to anyone else, realize that everyone will want to give you advice but you have to follow your own vision. Don’t take on a partner because your vision is your own. Create the big picture of what you want in your head, don’t be afraid to admit to yourself that you cannot do everything, so hire people to do what you can’t do and who will make you look like a superstar.
FM: What’s next for Lisa Kline the stores?
I’m opening three new stores in Newport Beach sometime in autumn, 2006. Another women’s store, my third men’s store, and my first Lisa Kline Kids!
For more info, head to www.lisakline.com.
Credit: Interview by Kasia Koniar, interview by Melissa Maynard
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