This Old Thing?

Can you mass-market vintage?

American Apparel, the influential brand that put a hipster T-shirt store on every corner, is giving it a shot.

California Vintage is the new retail concept from the Los Angeles company: an inviting shop stocked with secondhand clothing and augmented by a few American Apparel staples such as T-shirts, leggings and socks. The first California Vintage in the U.S. opened last week on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

The idea was born when employees noted that the company's basement sample room, brimming with vintage clothes, would make for a pretty brilliant thrift store. There weren't quite enough clothes to fill a store, said Mathew Swenson, brand manager for American Apparel, "so we hired some girls and they started shopping -- going to rag houses and small thrift stores." Since then, the company has become a regular buyer from secondhand apparel dealers all over the world.

From Day 1, American Apparel managed to tap into some sort of collective longing to be mistaken for downtown 1970s and '80s scenesters. Now, with California Vintage, they're trying to out-cool themselves. These days, in young, fashion-savvy circles, there's more cachet in saying, "it's vintage," than in shopping at a corporate store, even American Apparel. Pair this with an increased interest in eco-friendly and "recycled" fashion (the new moniker for vintage) in the marketplace, and you've got yourself a next-generation retail model.

Compared with American Apparel, famous for its sexually charged ad campaigns and its founder, Dov Charney, who shoots the campaign's photos, California Vintage is positively staid. Signs and ads consist of the store's name in white block letters against an expanse of 1980s-era hot pink.

California Vintage is the first chain of vintage stores owned by a publicly traded company. (American Apparel merged with acquisitions firm Endeavor Acquisition Corp. last year in a deal that's expected to close next month.)

But a good idea is nothing without strong follow-through. And it's in the execution of the concept that California Vintage falls short.

First, the store's small size -- 1,200 square feet -- means it can't provide the fertile hunting grounds offered by local vintage emporiums such as Jet Rag and Wasteland. And instead of choosing vintage pieces on their own distinctive merits, the buying team identifies trends and buys bulk quantities of items that speak to those trends. "We can actually respond to trends more quickly," Swenson said. "The merchandise isn't a random selection. . . . We can put out a call for trench coats and have all the rag house and stores we work with send all their trenches."