Photos by Jessica Miller / Styled by Fabrice Anneron / Hair and Makeup by Kirsten Simitzi
Mix or match? Jesse Ramos in KTZ dog-print shirt, KTZ leggings and KTZ tribal-print slip-ons. Natalie Rodgers in dress and matching leggings by Stockholm’s Kling by Kling
Photos by Jessica Miller / Styled by Fabrice Anneron / Hair and Makeup by Kirsten Simitzi
Icelandic hoodie: Nicole Cifani in Mundi’s unisex Capcom sweater
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Right now, if you are looking in Los Angeles for cutting-edge, high-end, underground designer clothing from Iceland, you will have to go to Chinatown. Robin Cervar is the woman to see. She is co-owner, with Jason Gillis, of Welcome Hunters on Jung Jing Road, and unless you have been trolling the fashion shows of lesser-known designers in Milan, Stockholm and Paris — where Cervar scouts seasonally — you have probably never seen clothes like the ones she sells. This is fashion that challenges the notion of what clothes can be.
Photos by Jessica Miller / Styled by Fabrice Anneron / Hair and Makeup by Kirsten Simitzi
Mix or match? Jesse Ramos in KTZ dog-print shirt, KTZ leggings and KTZ tribal-print slip-ons. Natalie Rodgers in dress and matching leggings by Stockholm’s Kling by Kling (Click to enlarge)
Photos by Jessica Miller / Styled by Fabrice Anneron / Hair and Makeup by Kirsten Simitzi
Icelandic hoodie: Nicole Cifani in Mundi’s unisex Capcom sweater (Click to enlarge)
Jessica Miller
Welcome mat (Click to enlarge)
Photos by Jessica Miller / Styled by Fabrice Anneron / Hair and Makeup by Kirsten Simitzi
Space frontiers: Gary Lopez in Mundi’s Magnetic Field sweater, Cheap Monday jeans and KTZ high-tops (Click to enlarge)
Jessica Miller
Feet don’t fail me now: Socks and shoes with a cult following. (Click to enlarge)
Is it a scarf or is it a visor? Both.
Is it a skirt or pants? Neither!
Welcome Hunters is the local home of Copenhagen-based Best Behavior's "Turnaround Top," so named, perhaps, because turning it around is what you must do over and over again to put it on. The top is a strange, exquisitely constructed, modern knit affair with long, loopy straps that drape over the shoulders like a jumper, or cross around the neck, or (should you so desire) your foot.
Certain things, however, you would simply never wear together. Cervar steers people clear of such obvious faux pas as pairing an oversize turquoise-blue KTZ logo shirt with loose-fitting jeans.
"But you could wear it with this," she says, selecting a pair of pants, also by KTZ, which feature a bright-orange corduroy seat sewn over gray cotton sweatpants with an orange bumblebee print and tight ankle cuffs. "Then you put it with these." She grabs a pair of polka-dot high-top sneakers. "It does look crazy but when you see it on, you look kind of great. But you have to work it. You have to get it on, and get out there."
Cervar, who is petite with a mussy honey-brown bob, is no stranger to getting it on and out there. Not too long ago, she was a project manager at Oracle, where she built a reputation in the office as the girl with experimental outfits, like a Vivienne Westwood black-velvet skirt that zipped up between the legs, from butt to navel.
"To the average passerby, it might look like a mistake," she says. "But it was fabulous. I would wear it with cashmere leggings that had slits up the side that sat over the shoe like spats."
Cervar cashed in her tech-stock options and started the store.
But even Cervar has her limits. Certain things, in her opinion, should never have been created by man or god.
"Lace," she says, as she folds a scarf into a glass case. "I don't think that lace should exist in any sort of format. Except in doilies or something."
The scarf, by Italian designer BeaYukMui, is 100 percent pashmina, but lighter and softer, from "a slightly different goat."
Cervar also likes to experiment with fashion for oft-neglected parts of the body, like the area between your ankle and the middle of your foot. For instance, she doesn't do the sexy schoolgirl look, but she has done a pair of $648 Bolognese leather Mary Janes with a footless (yes, you read right, footless) tight under a legging under a skirt. One of her favorite things to do is wear a sock under a tall (but not too tall) boot, so about an inch of fabric peeps out.
"I love doing things with socks and hosiery," she sighs, lifting up her pant leg and unzipping her boot to show me a striped, sheer-wool Gallo sock encasing her calf like a sausage skin. "See? You don't have to wear pahn-tyhose or something awful like that."
The socks, which she sells in the store and which have a cult following, are from Milan and cost about $40. She bought the boots for $1,200. But unless you have X-ray vision, you can't see either of them because they are covered up by her stretchy $65 Cheap Monday jeans.
"Their standards of quality are ridiculous," she says of the Gallo socks. FYI, in this context, "ridiculous" equals "fabulous."
The Welcome Hunters style manifests elements of New Rave, which is currently sending waves of skinny jeans across Europe and slowly filtering into Los Angeles.
"Swedish denim is where it's at right now," Cervar says. "The Swedes have cornered the market on awesome skinny jeans. Most U.S. skinny jeans are bedazzled or bejeweled in some way or aren't skinny enough. But men in Europe are wearing jeans that are glued on, although the next KTZ collection has sequins. It's pretty cutting edge."
