Jumbo’s Clown Room, The Silver Lake Trader Joe's, and Other Los Angeles Rites Of Passage From The Costume Designer Of ‘I Love LA’

When Christina Flannery moved to Los Angeles some eight-or-so years ago, the first place she remembers visiting is Wi Spa. The 24/7 Koreatown treatment center doesn’t sell merch, but patrons still rep its mustard-yellow graphic one stolen T-shirt at a time. Flannery even styled it on the character of Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) in her costume work for season one of “I Love LA.” In an era of television where every logo is a paid sponsorship, the costume designer has built a reputation for imbuing niche references into the fabric of her costumes, free of charge. “I think it's imperative that if you're working in a city and you're trying to represent a city and a culture, you need to give back and elevate those [local] brands,” Flannery says.

The hyperlocality of the costumes in “I Love LA”—spanning from Jordan’s Venice-made ERL fur jacket to Tallulah’s lifted t-shirt—demonstrates the work of a true LA veteran. When costuming the show, Flannery drew from her early experiences moving to the city from New Orleans, where she ended up living for seven years. “For some reason [my early LA rites of passage] are still very much relevant,” Flannery laughs. “The real version of LA is transplant culture too.” 

While Flannery has since relocated to Chicago, the costume designer will always consider Los Angeles home, and often finds herself back there for work. She reminisces on her early years in the city of angels with fondness, recalling an era where she would “do a beat” and put on an elaborately cute outfit just to go grocery-shopping at the Trader Joe’s in Silver Lake—which she describes as an intense pedestrian fashion show. “It's Silver Lake Trader Joe's, Wi spa, and then you end your night at Jumbo's Clown Room; those are all just rites of passage of coming to LA,” Flannery says with the authority of someone who has lived it. Spare the Trader Joe’s, merch from all three “rites of passage” made it into the costumes for “I Love LA,” with Jordan sporting a Jumbo’s Clown Room baseball cap in episode two. 

As Flannery gears up for the highly-anticipated second season  of “I Love LA,” she’s made a continued effort to source from local LA brands and boutiques. This season, the costume budget has increased and so has the lead time, allowing Flannery to pursue custom collaborations with brands along the likes of Betsey Johnson (a favorite brand of Maia’s from season one) and Diesel. As we spoke to Flannery in the shoe closet of the Warner Brothers Gold Room—a costume warehouse-slash-vintage archive out of Carrie Bradshaw’s dreams—her assistant costume designer was en route to a vintage sale at Albright Fashion Library in Beverly Hills. 

Going back as far as Flannery can remember, shopping meant sorting through piles of used clothes to find the hidden gem, so Flannery feels right at home among the mecca of vintage shoes surrounding her in the Gold Room, spanning from pink fur rave boots to diamond-encrusted Dolce and Gabbana kitten heels. Growing up, Flannery’s personal wardrobe mostly derived from the local thrift store or bags of unwanted clothes her stepmother accumulated from cleaning people’s houses. A lack of access bred creativity for Flannery, who went on to open her own vintage store in New Orleans and continues to view fashion as a mode of “fighting my own way of fitting into society.” While walking us through a rack of the best hits from season one, Flannery beamed over a vintage snakeskin trench she had thrifted for $80 from one of her favorite local vintage stores, Bearded Beagle. 

On the first season of “I Love LA,” Flannery took inspiration from Patricia Field’s work on season one and two of “Sex and the City.” “I am so inspired by how [Field] made that friend group feel authentic, but also carved out space for them,” Flannery says. “I think that it's the same with any friend group: We can blend into each other and get inspired by each other and borrow from each other, but we still have our own identity.” Flannery’s appreciation for the early seasons of SATC mirrors her appreciation for Gen Z’s mix-and-match sensibility. Whereas Fields blurred the line between vintage and couture, Flannery identifies a similar “DIY element” in Gen Z’s approach to fashion, where kids are “grabbing different kinds of things that inspire them in this weird dystopian world that we're living in,” on a day-to-day scale. In Los Angeles, Flannery practices this mix-and-match high-low ethos by sourcing from a myriad of vintage stores at different price points. The costume designer recommends spending Sunday morning at the Rose Bowl, then popping over to The Bearded Beagle for a more affordable thrift experience. 

Christina Flannery’s LA Rites of Passage

A Bob Baker Marionette Show

The Rose Bowl Flea Market > The Bearded Beagle pipeline for a day of vintage paroozing

Dressing up, full-beat, for the Trader Joe’s in Silver Lake 

Wi Spa (stolen shirt optional)

End the night with a cheeky strip show at Jumbo’s Clown Room