& Still
When you're young, sports can be such a dominant influence that you think about almost nothing else, even if you're fat, and suck at sports -- but eventually, all but the most socially hopeless branch out. Doing just that, the ampersand-tastic boutique & Still.
Opened as an overstock repository for classic 80s-90s sports gear (a Holyfield/Tyson jacket, "Dream Team" tees, etc), Still's just expanded into clothes repping those same decades' awesomely dated music and fashion. The former's repped by everything from "Girls Girls Girls"-era Crue tees, to a pair of never-released RUN-DMC vs Adidas sweatshirts, to a Christmas-themed shirt from New Kids On The Block (as if "Hangin' Tough" wasn't gift enough). "Fashion" starts lowbrow (a rack of cartoonish gear from 80s surf company T&C), then moves to vintage street (a red, black, and green Cross Colours hoodie asking "Ya Dig?"), and finally on to...classy, i.e., a repetitively self-congratulatory nylon Louis Vuitton jacket, and a thick-stitched Polo sweater rocking the American flag and the Statue Of Liberty -- picture the tired and hungry cruising in on a luxury sport catamaran.
In a further sign of maturation (albeit a sporty one), Still's just unleashed their first original piece: a collab with Pennant Race that's a ltd-edition tee featuring caricatures of six LA greats: Magic, Gretzky, Harold "Baby Jordan" Miner, Marcus Allen, Fernando Valenzuela, and Lew Alcindor -- who despite not sucking at sports, still managed to branch out into acting, yoga, and Islam.
