Lifestyle
At Santee Alley, come ready to shed rigid assumptions and play
This story is part of Image’s March Outside issue, a celebration of the Los Angeles outdoors and the many lives to be lived under its unencumbered sky.
There are old family photos of house parties from the ’70s that I like to stare at, of my uncles looking suave posing in a living room like they’re at the club about to take over the dance floor. Today, I’m thinking of them and of the exaggerated lapels on their leisure suits, of unbuttoned shiny shirts showing hints of a sun-kissed chest, and of a baby blue suit worn with a relaxed brown polo tucked in. As I walk through the Cosmo Plaza Food Court at 935 Santee St., where I parked my car on the roof, I pass a group of young girls eyeing the cotton candy quinceañera dresses and a pair of tourists pointing to their next destination. It’s a warm Friday afternoon in Santee Alley and I’m searching for some menswear.
“Se encuentra algo like this?” I ask store owner Pedro Ramirez of RJ Suits located on 1138 S. Santee Alley. We huddle around my phone as I show him images of Bad Bunny in the music video “NUEVAYoL” and Don Johnson in a pastel linen suit from an episode of “Miami Vice.” Ramirez looks up at his crowded inventory of electric, sequined imported ensembles and starts pulling suits down for me. Across the way, a salesperson calls out to pedestrians to come in to visit her shop. A man in a lowrider bike weaves through the crowd while another merchant blows bubbles to the delight of little kids.
Just a few weeks before, in January, federal immigration officers stood menacingly on the corner of Maple Avenue and 11th Street. No one was taken but the damage was done that day with vendors locking their doors to protect themselves. Compared to even last summer, it’s much quieter now, with fewer customers looking for bargains and crowding shoulder to shoulder. Yet the Alley persists in spite of all this. The 150 shops are a vital source of livelihood for many and an illustration of resilience. Santee Alley was born out of unconventionality with its makeshift stores designed to break retail rules. It is a place unlike any other in L.A., where customers can imagine sartorial possibilities that reflect back the uniqueness of our city’s inhabitants. Come ready to shed any rigid assumptions and play.
“This is very fancy,” Ramirez says as he shows me a soft, teal blazer covered with floral appliqués. Ramirez started selling in Santee Alley 25 years ago, when, he recalls, stores sold designer labels at cost and most merchants were Iranian not Latino. Now the alley has more of a swap meet feel, he says. I give the blazer a try.
Santee Alley, a.k.a. Los Callejones, may be nestled in the Fashion District but the place has its own DNA, unpretentious with its kaleidoscope of items to buy, from scented oils to lingerie to work uniforms. Santee came into existence in the mid-to-late 1970s for apparel businesses to sell their overstock items on the weekends. Now open 365 days, as the sign on Olympic Boulevard states, Santee Alley is our very own bazaar. Come with cash. Haggle if you want. Listen to the cumbia by young singer Estevie dedicated to the alley to get you prepped. “Barato pero me siento caro.” Yes. Cheap but leave feeling rich.
The first time I visited Santee Alley was 20 years ago when I moved to Los Angeles from the Bronx, New York. I didn’t have a sense of direction, always felt lost. Downtown was a labyrinth to me, but when I hit Santee Street and Olympic Boulevard, everything clicked into place. With its overly sensory stimulation and DIY retail spaces, Santee Alley reminded me of home. Reggaeton and banda music blared from the stores while I stocked up on the essentials: gold hoops, baseball hats and workwear to set me up in my new life. Throughout the years, Santee Alley has become a place for me to bring closer the family I left, a space where I can unabashedly experiment with my style through their selection of menswear.
When I was in high school, hip-hop was my soundtrack. We didn’t have much money, so I “shopped” in my father’s closet. I wore his Fila blue sweater with the F logo prominent and all the guys at school wanted to cop it. Meanwhile, my father was wondering why his blazers were going missing. Back then, dressing in menswear made me feel safe. The oversize blazers conjured up armor for the streets, as in, we’re outside taking care of business. I want to go back to that feeling. At Sinai Blankets on 1219-B Santee Alley, I try on a couple of Dickies shorts in a khaki color, extra stiff, while making a mental note of the Ben Davis workwear jackets displayed on the walls.
When I see Paulina López-Velázquez co-owner of Mexican restaurant Guelaguetza, she tells me she shops at the Alley for her monthly party, I Love Micheladas. She gravitates toward “super banda” outfits, shiny shirts with floral prints worn over jorts. “The stuff that I wear is for men, and I just reinvent it and reimagine it,” she says. López-Velázquez moved to L.A. from Oaxaca 30 years ago, when she was 13. “Any space that makes me feel connected or at home or makes me feel like I belong, because this is my people, I love to be there. And Santee Alley is one of those places.”
The Alley may feel like a chaotic space, but it’s about tapping in to this emotional dance to evoke the familiar. A memory is unlocked in a pair of slouchy carpenter pants and delicate stacks of golden jewelry, and the longing for home is temporarily satiated.
I’m shopping alongside a young college student who says she drove in from the Bay Area not knowing what to expect on her first visit. She admires the range of ranchero wear and tells me she’s looking for something fun to wear to go dancing later in the week. We both eye the big belt buckles. There’s also a nice selection of long-sleeved, men’s guayabera shirts, imported from Mexico, that would look great over a flowy skirt, I suggest. Nearby, two girls try on cowboy hats available in vibrant hues. In this moment, I can’t imagine a narrative where Santee Alley ceases to exist. Recent raids may try to instill fear, but this special communal space feels impervious to such weak displays. To lose it would mean to vanish a snapshot of what makes this city glorious.
Heading back toward Olympic, I enter David Apparel on 1019 Santee St. The menswear collection here is sporty with Gucci-esque matching outfits and dressy shirts emblazoned with lions. The last purchase I bought there was a tracksuit with green, red and blue stripes on the sides. Whenever I wear it I feel like Colin Farrell in the movie “The Gentlemen.” In the far corner of the store, a father with his son negotiates a price for a button-up while the song “Te Boté” by Ozuna plays loudly from a hidden speaker.
“Baby, la vida e’ un ciclo.” Bad Bunny raps his verse on the song reminding me of how life is a circle. I’m told linen suits will be coming in soon in the pastel colors I’m looking for. I pull a brown polo shirt from an overstuffed rack and press it against me. I check myself out in the mirror and wonder, would the uncles approve?
Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning author of fiction.
On Tuesday, during its cruise show in Biarritz, Chanel introduced a creation that was not so much a shoe as a sh—. Not a sandal but a san—. Just small bits of leather cupping the model’s heels, held in place by angel-hair straps tied over the instep. The model’s feet, from about mid-arch to the toes, were left naked to feel the plush ivory carpet on which they walked. I am sure they were thankful it was not a stark cement floor.
Chanel said the designer Matthieu Blazy “wanted to evoke the down-to-earth feeling of a woman coming out of the beach or the sea.” The result was, it said, “shoes that almost look like jewelry.”
Indeed, this design is gossamer to the point of becoming a metaphysical paradox. (I believe it was Freud who went mad positing when does a shoe stop being a shoe, right?) But really, these heel caps represent irrational, nonsensical luxury at the highest tier — shoes made for feet that never touch the ground. Maaaaybe these are for your private spread in Capri, not the lowly public beaches of Delaware. Also, these shoes — if they are produced, of course — provide the rich with a chance to show off their Chanel-caliber wealth, even while barefoot.
As stunty as these shoes are, it’s worth pointing out the extent to which fashion brands are reconsidering what a shoe can be and how to charge money for less and less coverage.
What is the success of Margiela’s cloven Tabi boots if not a testament to the fact that people want to turn their lower extremities into an alien form? We’re in the shadow of the Row’s $890 jellies and Alaïa’s $990 fishnet flats. It goes on. This spring, JW Anderson is selling flip-flops shaped like a Monstera leaf, and Balenciaga’s got a platform thong in satin.
Chanel has deduced that you can’t add to a shoe to make it extraordinary anymore. To cut through, you have to strip it all away. Or, I guess, strip it half away.
Fashion’s Most Insatiable Collector
A retrospective is opening today at the Design Museum in London on the A Bathing Ape founder, current Kenzo designer and world champion collector of stuff: the Japanese designer Nigo. When the museum first contacted me about the exhibition, which encompasses more than 700 artifacts, largely from the designer’s archive, I thought how could that be? Over the years, Nigo has had several highly publicized auctions of his holdings. Turns out, there was always more. Here are a few highlights from the show, which runs until October.
The custom denim jacket was made by Levi’s for Bing Crosby. As the story goes, Crosby was turned away at the Vancouver Hotel in 1951 for wearing denim, which was deemed déclassé. Smelling a PR opportunity, Levi’s made him a denim tux, which Nigo later bought and wore.
Growing up in Japan, Nigo was smitten by American musicians like Buddy Holly. He would later remake his version of Holly’s blocky-block eyeglasses and purchase a signed copy of the singer’s high school yearbook.
What’s notable about this 30ish-year-old sweatshirt, an early design for Nigo’s Bape label, is that it’s produced by Camber, a manufacturer in Pennsylvania. It’s a testament to how Japanese designers often hold American-made clothes in higher regard than many Americans do.
Ask Vanessa
Does my handbag need to match my shoes, my coat or what? Does that rule even matter anymore, and if so, where and when does it apply? — Madeleine, New York
The “matchy-matchy rule” — which is to say, the idea that you should match the color of your handbag to your shoes or your outfit — is a sort of postwar, midcentury-modern (or not-so-modern) trope, originally sold as an easy hack to demonstrate sophistication and attention to detail. Read more.
The Japanese T-shirts so many of you wanted to know about are …
A number of you have written to ask about the T-shirt in the photo illustration at the top of my article on Japanese designers. Unfortunately, that was just an illustration. Sorry!
If you are looking for something similar — a heavyweight tee with a sturdy neckline — the Uniqlo U T-shirts are close. As are those from Lady White Co. and Velva Sheen. My advice. though: Try eBay. I’ve found the bulk of my shirts by searching “vintage deadstock white T-shirt.” Simple white tees are ones of those things that were made better back in the day.
Other things worth knowing about:
Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: Our flight felt like a first date. Would it continue after we landed at LAX?
When I was 30 years old, my agent told me I needed to go to Los Angeles to get some “West Coast credits.” I didn’t want to go because it meant I’d lose my precious rent-controlled apartment on Central Park West as well as the supportive New York theater community I’d worked so hard to get into. After graduating from Juilliard five years earlier, I was getting theater work in and around the city.
I didn’t think I was pretty enough to get work in Hollywood, but my agent disagreed. She had faith in me, so I reluctantly packed up my stuff and moved to Santa Monica with Gus, my German shepherd. A week after we arrived, the Northridge earthquake happened. I crouched under a table, holding Gus close. Aftershocks filled me with terror, and I wondered if California was telling me I wasn’t welcome.
Over the next few months L.A. slowly recovered, and I started going on auditions. Much to my amazement, I got hired to do a new play and got a couple of small roles on some sitcoms. In between gigs, I took Gus on long walks along the beach and found that I was starting to like California.
One afternoon, I went to a coffee shop in Santa Monica where a middle-aged red-headed guy with a beard was playing Van Morrison songs on his guitar.
After he finished, I thanked him, and we started talking. He explained that he was a neurologist at USC but loved to play guitar in his free time. I was intrigued. So when he asked me out, I said yes. He took me to dinner a few times in his snappy red Porsche, then invited me to join him for a weekend in Yosemite National Park.
As we were eating dinner in the quaint little cabin on our first night, he said he really liked me, but if our relationship was going to go anywhere, he wanted me to “get out of show business.” Did he seriously think I’d give up acting to be his girlfriend? That was a role I couldn’t and wouldn’t play. After that, I stopped taking his calls.
A few weeks later, I had to travel to Indiana for my grandfather’s funeral. On my way back to Los Angeles, I changed planes in Cincinnati, and as I sat down, a nice-looking, 30-something man with a boyish smile in the next seat gave me a welcoming nod. I nodded back, got a script from my bag and tried to read but promptly fell asleep.
Half an hour later, I woke up with a little drool seeping from the corner of my mouth. I laughed at myself, and the man with the boyish smile laughed with me.
“Sorry about the drool,” I said, wiping my face.
“It happens to the best of us,” he said with a smile.
I noticed a book in his hand. “What are you reading?”
“The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.”
“Sounds good.” I thought, “This guy must be pretty cool if he’s reading that book.” I looked forward to sitting next to him for the next three hours.
“I’m Martha, by the way.” I offered my hand.
“Nice to meet you Martha-by-the-Way. I’m Don.” We shook hands.
“Do you live in L.A.?”
“Silver Lake, and you?” he asked.
“Santa Monica. Are you a native Californian?”
“No, I’m from Pennsylvania. That’s where I’m coming from now,” he said.
He seemed so nice and normal. I worried he might be married, so I asked, “Do you have family in Los Angeles?”
“No, just me,” he said with a smile. I hoped that meant he was single.
He gestured to the script on my lap, “Is that a script you’re reading?”
“Yeah, I have an audition for ‘Diagnosis Murder.’ Maybe I’ll get to work with Dick Van Dyke.”
“I hope you get it.” He sounded genuinely supportive, which was so different from the neurologist’s response to my work.
“Thanks. Me too. What do you do?”
He said he’d studied filmmaking at the University of Texas at Austin and had made a few films, but now he split his time between the press box at Dodger Stadium, charting pitches for Major League Baseball, and judging scripts for the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I was impressed.
The rest of our flight felt like a first date, complete with dinner and a movie. When we landed at Los Angeles International Airport, I got nervous because I wanted him to ask for my number but worried he might consider me geographically undesirable since we lived on opposite sides of L.A.
As we headed toward baggage claim, he asked if I wanted to get together for coffee sometime. I said yes, and we exchanged numbers. Don’s smiling blue eyes and witty conversation had me feeling giddy at a time when I least expected it. The universe had taken my grandfather but had given me a new friend.
A week later he drove all the way to Santa Monica to take me to coffee. When we finished, he suggested we go to a movie, so we went to see “The Last Seduction,” a neo-noir thriller. During our discussion afterward, I learned how much Don knew about filmmaking, and from then on we started spending Saturday afternoons at the academy, watching screenings of new films for free since he worked there.
Don also introduced me to the joys of hiking in Griffith Park and the Santa Monica Mountains. Being with him felt so right. He was unlike anyone I’d ever met, childlike and grown-up at the same time, goofy and intellectual. But the most important thing was that he wasn’t asking me to change. He accepted me for who I was.
As Don and I grew closer, my desire to return to New York faded. After six months of dating, we decided to live together and rented an old Craftsman home in Echo Park, which sat at the top of a hill that overlooked Dodger stadium and Elysian Park.
A few years later, we got married and bought a house in Glassell Park, where we still live today. I came to Los Angeles to find work, but ended up finding so much more.
The author is a freelancer and storyteller who lives in Glassell Park with her husband, two dogs and four quail.
She’s on Instagram: @marthathompsonbooks.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
Steven Patrick Lynch made Madison Ashley Greco laugh when he walked up to the counter at Anderson’s Frozen Custard in Tonawanda, N.Y., where she worked as a cashier, in January 2019.
“What would you recommend: the roast beef or the lemon ice?,” Lynch asked her, knowing he would order both.
“Well, one’s a dinner, and one’s a dessert,” she responded.
She already thought he was cute when he walked into the ice cream shop, but when he started ordering, his humor won her over. After Lynch paid with his credit card, she took notice of his name at the bottom of the receipt.
Greco went home after work that night and couldn’t stop thinking about him. She managed to find his X account and followed him. A few minutes later, he sent her a message: “Wow, I’m impressed.”
They had their first date five days later at the local shopping mall, walking around and people watching. “By the time we knew it, we were lapping around the mall for three or four hours,” Greco said. Two months later, he asked her to be his girlfriend.
At the time, Lynch, now 32, was about a year sober, and Greco, now 26, was supportive of his journey.
“Instead of going to the bar and getting a beer, I would just go to Anderson’s and get a custard,” he said. “It was awesome seeing my girl and visiting her at work.”
They soon discover an unexpected connection. They both had grown up watching wrestling with their siblings, and they even realized that they had been at the same World Wrestling Entertainment “Armageddon” event in Buffalo in 2008, when he was 14 and she was 9. But both had drifted away from the sport for years.
They rediscovered their love for wrestling, and in March 2020, they went to their first WWE event together. It was one of their last public outings before the Covid-19 pandemic. By June, they had moved into an apartment together in Buffalo.
“Being home and having so much more free time, we picked up where we left off as kids with watching weekly,” Lynch said. “Every Monday night was ‘Raw,’ Friday night was ‘SmackDown.’ Now, Tuesday, they have ‘NXT.’”
They also rewatched old events they were nostalgic about and got into wrestling reality TV shows, like “Total Divas,” “Total Bellas” and “Miz & Mrs.”
They love the theatrics of WWE.
Lynch, who graduated from Niagara University with a bachelor’s degree in sports management, always loved sports. Greco, an independent house cleaner, has always been a reality TV fan. “It’s kind of a meshing of the two together,” Lynch said of their interests. (He now cares for his grandparents full time. They had invited him to move into their home when he became sober.)
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
At the 50th birthday celebration of Greco’s mother in Rincon, Puerto Rico, in October 2024, Lynch, who had said he couldn’t be there because of work, surprised her on the last day of the trip with a pear-shaped diamond ring by Neil Lane, the jewelry designer for “The Bachelor,” a show she loves.
Shortly after the proposal, in January 2025, Lynch was diagnosed with a bladder cyst and underwent surgery to remove it in April. He was out of work for four months. “I had enough to pay all our bills and make ends meet, but definitely not enough to pay what most people are paying for weddings these days,” said Lynch, adding that they otherwise “definitely would have started saving for a wedding and making plans a lot sooner.”
But that turned out to be “a minor setback for a major comeback,” he said.
The “major comeback” came on April 16, when they were married in Las Vegas by Michael Mizanin, better known as The Miz and Greco’s favorite wrestler.
After spotting a post on X about getting married during WrestleMania, the annual professional wrestling event, Greco applied. About two hours after she submitted an application on a Thursday, she received a phone call explaining that they were selected to be married the following Thursday. They immediately began scrambling to book flights.
The ceremony, organized by ESPN and WWE, was held in a wrestling ring set up at the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, where 16 friends and relatives cheered as The Miz led the ceremony. Kalin Ivanov, an ordained minister at the chapel, signed the marriage license.
After the ceremony, the couple had an impromptu celebration at In-N-Out Burger before hopping from casino to casino, Lynch wearing a WWE belt the entire time. Greco had proposed back to him with the belt in January 2025. “He deserved his special moment, too, because he blew me away with our engagement,” she said.
Lynch fully embraced the excitement of the moment. “I just felt like a million bucks everywhere we went,” he said. “I thought, ‘I am the WWE champion.’ I had my belt on. I had my dream girl on my arm. And we just got married.”
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