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Feature
Summer Fashion
Local Retailers Offer a Splash
of Originality in Salt Lake
Few things are worse than buying a new outfit and wearing it for the first time, only to spot someone else wearing the exact same thing. For years, shopping in Salt Lake has meant little more than a monotonous stroll through box-like stores selling homogenized fashion to the masses. But the fashion tide seems to be changing, thanks to the opening of a few new stores that have less to do with ordinary than with originality.
One such store is Cockers, located in Crossroads Mall downtown. What started out years ago at Trolley Square as a small shop selling provocative underwear and club-appropriate clothing has, over the years, blossomed into a much larger shopping entity encompassing a vast array of clothing items geared toward fashion-forward guys. Throughout the store is a wide selection of jeans, slacks, shirts for dressing up or dressing down, and even accessories such as belts, ties and scents that one would be hard-pressed to find in other stores.
“We aren’t trying to be mainstream,” confesses owner Dale LeBaron. “What we go after is the latest cutting edge.”
Many of the clothes offered are acquired through national clothing conventions that give buyers a greater network of designers to obtain original fashions from. In addition to the popular sexy knickers the store first offered, hot selling items include jeans imported from Italy and Brazil, as well as tailored European shirts that come in an unimaginable number of prints and patterns.
“What’s unusual about our store is that we find smaller designers that are not quite popular yet,” says LeBaron.
Because of the diverse collection of fashion offered, it has become somewhat of a destination store attracting many repeat buyers. And while there hasn’t been any outright complaints from the shopping public about the sometimes risqué clothing sold, LeBaron admits some passing customers hesitate at the sight of the store name before walking in or just moving along. LeBaron recently opened a second store, named Spark, in the Valley Fair Mall. Spark carries more moderately priced clothing lines that will appeal to the younger, cultural, and less-trendy but no less fashion-conscious crowd.
On the other side of town, in Sugar House, is the newly-opened Foxtrot, a joint venture between partners Ronald Tucker and local designer Marcus Walker. Tucker, who ended up in Salt Lake by way of Vancouver, realized very quickly the growing diversity of the community and wanted to find a way to accommodate that.
“One of the first things I noticed was not the lack of fashion consciousness, but the lack of availability to it,” he said.
Not wanting Foxtrot to appear as a plastic replication of any other retailer, Tucker and Walker took pains to present to the public a store that was unlike anything else in both appearance and merchandise sold. With a built-in DJ booth, cool overhead melodic beats, wide changing rooms with bright green curtains, and even a wall-mounted steel and glass fish tank designed by a local artisan, the interior has been built from the ground up to reflect diversity embracing originality and a lack of pretentiousness.
Along with the items that Walker designs, Foxtrot also carries items from local designers, such as vintage women’s shoes that are airbrushed and sealed, each pair a different color and design ensuring one-of-a-kind authenticity. On top of their own in-house line, the store also offers a selection of retro and contemporary clothing hailing from either coast, deliberately carrying just a few of each item so as to keep within the idea of individuality.
“We really want to offer something to everyone,” says Tucker, who would like to eventually sell fewer clothes by big name designers and focus more on the artistic fashion designs of both the Foxtrot line and local designers.
The under-30 crowd has been their target audience, and regardless of gender and orientation, the response has been great. The pair also credits the location of their store, which is nestled between other pockets of originality like Haight, Pib’s Exchange and Luna’s Ice Cream, as an area that has transformed from just another Salt Lake street into a metaphor for the changing diversity of the city.
With the welcome arrival of fashion-forward shopping unlike anything before, one can finally leave the homogenized products at the farm.
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