Piecing together the last 11 months felt like trying to laugh at a joke I didn’t quite understand — painful, cringe, and less and less funny every time I tried to explain it. The “so, how are you?” questions were earnestly plastered on the faces of everyone I’d been avoiding since April, when we closed our shop in Echo Park, Género Neutral, after three years. The questions got louder and louder and my voice, faint. I preferred being the young(ish) woman who did “cool” things, who was fun and held it together enough to turn chaos into chaotic good. I preferred being “that girl who owns that shop” instead of “that girl whose shop ended up closing,” and who felt like a failing live wire because of it. “I have no idea how I’m doing” became my typical — and honest — sad girl response to those daunting questions for all of spring and summer, until it became too much to let die another day, and I needed to figure out how to rebirth my business.

Emily and Bella De La Torre

Firmé Atelier’s Jonathan Lee looking into Estevan Oriol’s car.

Artist rafa esparza, left, and Bryan Escareño

My business partner, Jenni Zapata, and I were of course not alone in this experience of closing our doors suddenly and seemingly prematurely, as we watched so many fellow small businesses succumb to the quicksand of L.A. brick-and-mortar retail in 2024. We approached this past January with fresh energy as best we could, existing in survival mode most days and fairly detached from the social spaces we used to frequent. We weren’t ready to be vulnerable with others about the predicament we found ourselves in. I can’t fake any funk (and choose not to), so I started to slip away.

Our spirits were weary from a tough holiday season, from watching a few “bad” days turn into weeks, and then months. But we were determined to reignite the Género magic that helped us turn nothing into something during the pandemic, drunk on delusion and wine, replacing the seltzers of our days gone by. The truth is, whatever we did in the shop wasn’t going to be enough to sustain a new future, as too much became out of our control. We couldn’t throw the financial dice another month, let alone the rest of our lease term, or find the last loophole in an economy that isn’t built for independent small-business owners. My bank account knew this, my body knew this, but my heart was breaking. I met people I never wanted to live without in that shop; I met a version of myself I never imagined I could be when we opened our doors, and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her.

Jordan Johnson and Bobby Cabbagestalk

Lupe Rosales and Ashley Alcantar

We were the exception to the retail rule for the bulk of our business, but for reasons that make sense only in hindsight. By the end of 2023, we’d sit on our conversation pit-style couch at GN in amazement at how many people would come to hang out and talk with us in a week, but who wouldn’t buy anything, or even try to pretend that’s what they came to do. What we sold on our racks mattered less and less to the bulk of guests that came through — it was the metaphorical space we created for people that kept them coming back. We witnessed a community form organically in our doorway, on our couch, on our bench outside, and on Sunset Boulevard, “[singing in non-English]” and dancing to some of the best DJs on the east side.

How do you put a price on that, let alone pay rent and next season’s invoices from it? You can’t, we couldn’t — so we stopped, albeit to the shock of a lot of our friends and peers who didn’t have to keep track of what success looked like the way we did.

Maurice Harris, the artist and floral visionary behind Bloom & Plume and the coffee shop of the same name, got it. In August, he closed his coffee shop nearby, on Temple Street, after five years. “I stayed in my own way for a very long time, and that’s been a hard pill to swallow,” he told me. “We all struggle with being in the hot seat and realizing, ‘Oh, I could be the problem here,’ and that you’re probably going to create that problem a few more times before you learn the lesson. My therapist and I talk about how you don’t change until it’s painful enough.”

Free Oribhabor, Bobby Cabbagestalk and friend

After closing his coffee shop and while exploring his cult-followed “Capitalism Doesn’t Care About Your Curiosity” series he self-produces on Instagram, Harris’s approach is changing, while rooted in authenticity. He’s journeyed his love of flowers into scent exploration, developing candles and fragrances. “I’m giving myself room to be more flexible in the world of doing this differently,” he generously shared. He’s focusing on the things that he’s discovered can be next, and new.

As small-business owners, we’ve all taken turns looking up to each other in the fight to be authentic, to reinvent, or to legitimize the risks we’ve taken. None of us really knows what we’re doing, which makes it that much more magical when something “works” — and relatable when it doesn’t. From a boutique perspective, the kisses of death looked like the ubiquity of fast-fashion culture and the now-eternal sale season, unreliable consumer attention spans, and the fact that people aren’t spending money like they did, as personal spending power tanked for so many post-pandemic. Factoring in the cost of living and operating in L.A., small retailers are becoming akin to islands in a sea of rents that only bigger chains can afford, which leaves us all a bit cynical and bored, as the “cool” factor is challenged in more and more neighborhoods. If these conversations-turned-therapy sessions with our peers told me anything, though, it’s that death and rebirth can coexist, regardless of how quickly we accept that transformation when confronted with it.

Eve Mauro and Estevan Oriol

For me, “changing” has sometimes looked like going on Do Not Disturb on my phone for the last 11 months. Other times, it’s been choosing to meet with our newest business partner — one of my best friends, Danny Jestakom — to talk about the ideas we’ve been poring over in remixing, recalibrating and growing GN into a certain afterlife, one with less constraints, or certain freedoms. Shedding the imposter syndrome in pivoting the business is something I’m still working on, as I tell myself I do this now instead of that, and I’m a better person for it. Sincerely, I still sometimes struggle to lean into how life is completely different now, until I wake up from my fever dream and remind myself none of this really matters anyway (Aquarius moon here, y’all).

Jaime Rosas and Anahi Pozos

Last Saturday, we threw our first event, a party in partnership with chef Enrique Olvera’s Ditroit Taqueria in the Arts District. It was our celebration in loving memory of the Género Neutral shop, and an honoring of what’s to come with GNLA, the older sibling of Género, which will still be about collaborating with our favorite brands, people and spots around Los Angeles. We came up with the name for the party, Siempre Juntos, or “Together Forever,” at the tail end of summer, long before ballots were cast, before our collective hearts experienced another guaranteed heartbreak. Yearning for the infinity of connection and for the opportunity to reunite, we wanted nothing more than to create a moment where we all could get together again, like no time had passed, like the good ‘ol days, like nothing had changed even if everything had.

Models April Kosky, left, and Sky Michelle

Carolina Isabel Salazar and Pablo Simental

Jonathan Lee and Eric Kim of Firmé Atelier

Image’s fashion director at large, Keyla Marquez, editorial director Elisa Wouk Almino, and staff writer Julissa James

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I’m completely certain of what’s next — things being hard, growth being nonlinear, not knowing what I’m doing and doing it anyway, much like the approach we had when crafting Género Neutral from scratch. I smile again because of it, and because we have thousands of new friends now to see us through. If GNLA is the other side, then I hope to see you there.

Ashley S.P. is a writer and the co-founder of GNLA, a new multicultural agency rooted in the joyous and inclusive spirit of the Género Neutral shop in Echo Park.