

Retail Icon Lisa Kline Mentors New Bricks-and-Mortar Owners
Online Editorial- California Apparel News
It was a magical time, that great retail heyday some 20 years ago when people got off the plane at LAX and the first stop on their trip was Lisa Kline’s trendsetting retail store on Robertson Boulevard.
At the peak of her empire, Kline operated six stores and had a staff of 85, but when the economic and retail winds changed direction she closed her shops one by one, the last in 2011. Today she’s a sought-after retail consultant with strong opinions on the present state of fashion and retail, not to mention her radical concept for what L.A. needs at the present moment. The California Apparel News caught up with the legendary fashionista to find out more.
CAN: You had a meteoric rise followed by a dramatic pullback. What was the whole whirlwind like?
LK: The stores were just the most incredible experience. We launched hundreds of brands, and at our peak we were doing half a million dollars per month just at the flagship store, which was unheard of. We couldn’t make a mistake in our buying. It was a huge operation, every celebrity was coming in, and people all over the world came to see what brands we had and copy us. I’d go to trade shows and people would introduce themselves saying, “I’m the Lisa Kline of Connecticut!” And I would go, “Okay…” It was just funny.
CAN: Where is retail now, and how did we get here?
LK: Everything in the world has changed. People say it’s the internet, but it’s so many other things. The writer’s strike and crash of 2008 changed the way people spend money, and the creation of boutique magic cannot be recreated online. You need a multi-experience in order to get people to shop because I don’t think they’re shopping just to go shopping in the age of Poshmark, Farfetch and The Real Real. A place needs to have a bunch of stuff going on that drives people who are going there for a lot of reasons. Maybe someone comes in for flowers, coffee or dog stuff and then buys clothes. It has to be dynamic. You have to capture retail in a way that’s not to be expected.
CAN: Who’s thriving in this challenging retail environment?
LK: In the nontraditional space, since 2017 I’ve curated the gift shop at Shutters On The Beach, the iconic hotel in Santa Monica. I created the whole retail concept from scratch and increased their volume over 100 percent. A lot of locals come in, having figured out that I curate it. We sell a lot of branded apparel, a ton of cashmere, and it’s kind of funny but we started buying items with a little of the Western flair, with horses and things, and it’s selling, which has been surprising in a good way because it’s outside the whole beach thing.
CAN: And what about the world of fashion boutiques?
LK: In May of last year Leanna Drammer opened Lou Los Olivos in the town of Los Olivos, and I began helping her with merchandising, buying smarter and how to talk to the reps with my history of relationships that you just can’t buy. I think it’s important to do clothing stores according to where they’re located, and this has a high-end ranch and wine-country vibe. She was able to acquire the space next door and just opened a men’s section. Most of her customers are married and walking around together, so she felt very good about men’s, which I love doing. We have brands like Rag & Bone and John Varvatos that everyone will know and then things like a really cool new Japanese denim brand called Hiroshi Kato.
CAN: Why has it worked for her?
LK: The town is an amazing community, and retail works in a small town. Every time I go there I see the same people, and they come in to say hi and also to spend money. People are excited to support each other’s endeavors; they’re friends, and they’re also customers. And I love being in an area where there’s life and action and traffic and people loving the curation that she does. And I know here men’s will do well. Leanna loves having a store and works her tail off and can’t wait to just grow, grow, grow. It’s fun to help her.
CAN: What do you think L.A. needs? What would make a big splash?
LK: I just looked at spaces two months ago for a concept I’ve been developing for six years. It has 21 highly curated categories, similar to how you shop online and kind of like a mini-curated department store. But it would need a big space and a lot of money to do. And a parking lot and security!

Meet Lisa Kline
Online Editorial- Bold Journey
Hi Lisa, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
My optimism comes from being a true entrepreneur. It is a way of life, my personality and a gift I was born with. I have always used it to guide all of my decisions not only in work but personal as well. You can’t be a risk taker or visionary without being optimistic, or your thoughts, dreams, ideas and concepts will never come to life in a pure authentic way. Being positive opens up the playing field and is a very important energy to have around you and one you give off....

Meet Lisa Kline
Online Editorial- Canvas Rebel
Lisa , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?
I always believe it is important to appreciate your customers who support you and your business. When I had my stores I showed my appreciation in many ways from a discount for shopping to holiday gifts with personalized notes. When I felt connected to a customer and they shopped and loved my store I gave them at least 20% off along with a VIP gift card tag they could put on their key chain. It made them feel special and they always were loyal to my store and shopped with me. The tag had my logo and it was something to be proud of that they could show off. Some customers who were really VIP would get 30% or 40% depending on their annual spend.......
Dynamic Women of Los Angeles
Editorial: Angeleno

Angeleno is pleased to present a selection of extraordinary women who are dynamic leaders in their field. These women of distinction are truly accomplished and stand out as some of the best influencers and contributors of our community.
With Digital Commerce Surging, Social Media Looks for Its Place in Retail
Online Editorial: Apparel News
Social media has minted its own internet celebrities, but many entrepreneurs are trying to judge whether platforms such as Instagram and Facebook will make fortunes for retailers.
With the billions of people checking social media every day, these platforms should be natural candidates for shopping. In mid-2020, the platforms, both owned by Facebook Inc., the Menlo Park, Calif., technology conglomerate that earned more than $70 billion in 2019, introduced Instagram Shops and Facebook Shops. In the future, consumers will be able to pay for items through Facebook’s Messenger and Instagram Direct.
The timing to introduce the Shops feature could not be better. 2020 was the year that digital commerce skyrocketed. E-commerce sales increased 49 percent during the 2020 holiday season, according to a report from Mastercard Spending Pulse, a market-research group of the Mastercard payments network. However, commerce on social media is still considered relatively new yet a force that is gaining momentum, said Paula Rosenblum, managing partner and co-founder of Retail Systems Research, a Miami, Fla., market-research company focused on retail technology.
Currently, social media is an important forum to introduce consumers to products, Rosenblum said. “What you are talking about here is the purchase journey. It fits into product discovery,” she said.
Product discovery is a primary social-media function for Lisa Kline, a once-prominent bricks-and-mortar retailer. In 2011, she closed her Lisa Kline physical boutiques, which had cultivated a big following when they did business on high-profile shopping streets such as Los Angeles’ Robertson Boulevard.
Since 2011, she has worked as a retail consultant for high-end hotels like Shutters on the Beach and organizing brand placement for programs such as the “Today Show.” But in June 2020, she got back into retail by opening shoplisakline.com, a Los Angeles–headquartered digital-commerce retailer where the @shoplisakline Instagram page is an important part of the operation.
She uses Instagram and Facebook profiles to tell the world about products that she is curating and to reintroduce Lisa Kline to the shopping public. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, and definitely before digital commerce dominated retail, the way to tell the world that a retailer was ready to do business typically required opening a physical store. Along with serving as a place to make transactions, the physical store would serve as something of a billboard, according to conventional retail wisdom.
“Social Media has been crucial for promoting my new website, letting people know I am back in the space, and promoting brands. I already see it working by bringing in sales off of Instagram and Facebook posts. In 2021, there will be a big focus on promotion via those social-media channels,” she said.
Social media has been reaching its revenue-making potential for Wallis Barton, who makes most of her income from the vintage-fashion boutique The Cornwall Collection, which she runs on the Instagram page @thecornwallcollection. She also earns money through working as a style influencer on the Instagram page @_wallis_. If it weren’t for Instagram, her avocation for vintage fashion would have remained a serious hobby. Since 2018, she has sold vintage designer fashions, as well as vintage T-shirts, and, more recently, furniture and homewares on @thecornwallcollection. She believes that many who are interested in vintage clothing’s sustainability angle visit her profile page.
“It’s a lot Gen Z and Millennials” Barton said. “They pay through Venmo and give an address. I put their orders in the mail.” For those who do not frequent Instagram, she has also produced the e-commerce boutique thecornwallcollection.com. However, the informality of social media has built a community around her Instagram pages, she said. “I put an item on the page, and they DM me,” Barton said of the direct messaging feature on Instagram.
The pictures and the video she posts also develop a conversation around the clothing that she sells. “[Shoppers] get to have an experience,” Barton said. “You get to know me and it feels more personal. I am not a nameless, faceless company. You are helping to support me, my rescue dog and two cats.”
BY ANDREW ASCH

The Gift Whisperer
Editorial: Angeleno
“The relationship between a buyer like me and a designer is special,” says Lisa Kline (shoplisakline.com). “I find pure joy in connecting and engaging with such talented people.”
Kline opened her first shop on Robertson in the ’90s, and before long, it was the go-to spot for unique and stylish apparel, decor, accessories and more. “We set the tone for what was hot or not in retail, and people from all over the U.S. and the world came to shop trends and take home a piece of L.A. style.” Kline closed the last of her six stores in 2012, and has since reinvented herself as a digital retailer—25 years after opening her first boutique. The eclectic mix of offerings defies categorization. “I don’t work in a box or by any rules,” she explains. “I use pure instinct and my eye and vision for seeking out exceptional talent.” Here, the master curator shares her holiday present picks.
BY LAURA ECKSTEIN JONES


L.A. Retailer Lisa Kline Is Back With a California-Curated Online Gift Business
Online Editorial- WWD
Lisa Kline, who helped transform L.A.’s Robertson Boulevard into a shopping hot spot in the early Aughts — at one time owning six stores selling women’s, men’s and kids’ — has reinvented her business online.
Although she primarily sold apparel in her stores — setting the tone for the West Coast casual look and “building nearly every sweats brand,” as she said — for her namesake e-commerce site she’s leaning into essentials and gifting.
“I’m buying into beauty, food, supplements, workout stuff, games and puzzles — and curating lots of gift baskets,” said Kline, whose brick-and-mortar business took a tumble in 2008 following the Hollywood writers’ strike, when she saw her sales volume drop 90 percent, forcing her to close her stores in 2010.
Since then, she has worked on a line with HSN and launched several hotel boutiques. But when the hospitality industry shuttered in 2020 because of COVID-19, she started sourcing personal protective equipment and selling it online, which led her to expand into other categories and concepts.
“I’m looking to be a gift platform, curating the best boxes. It makes me feel like I’m merchandising again. I love discovering and promoting brands,” she said, noting that her emphasis is still on the West Coast when it comes to product in the Surf Odyssey, Eat California, Jetsetter, Maximalist and more themed gift boxes, featuring candies by Los Angeles-based Sugarfina, puzzles by L.A.-based artist Gray Malin, California Cleanse tea, local cookbooks and more.
“I know people trust me as a source, that’s why I wasn’t scared to relaunch,” she added, sharing that she has been getting orders from all over the U.S., and includes a “Greetings from L.A.” postcard in every package. “I’m having the best time again.”
BY BOOTH MOORE, WWD
Local Stories: Meet Lisa Kline
Interview: VoyageLA
Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Kline.
Lisa, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up, even as a very young child, I knew I wanted to own a clothing store. Fast forward to 1995 when I opened one of the first contemporary women’s clothing stores in Los Angeles and in doing so, established Robertson Boulevard as a shopping destination. It eventually earned me the title “Queen of Robertson” by Vogue magazine and the street became a place to see and be seen. I worked really hard to bring my vision and business to life and became a trusted style source to many actors, recording artists and celebrities. In a time when my competitors were calling the paparazzi on their own famous clientele, I implemented the first ever paparazzi curtain to provide all my customers privacy while they shopped. It was always about them, they always came first.
I went on to open two Lisa Kline Men stores, two Lisa Kline Kid stores, an additional women’s store and my online store, Lisakline.com.
During my career I have been featured as an iconic retailer in magazines including Elle, In Style, Vogue, and Lucky, and on TV Networks including KTLA, E News Live, GMA, TV Guide, Hell’s Kitchen, Bravo and had a loungewear line on HSN.
Over the past several years I’ve worked as a retail consultant, using my experience to curate for clients like Shutters on the Beach, Westlake Village Inn, The Today Show, Bed Bath and Beyond and Shop LC.
Most recently though, I launched my e-commerce marketplace www.shoplisakline.com. I’m thrilled to be back in the game with a platform to introduce and promote cool brands. This time around I’m selling everything from beauty, home, gift, apothecary, apparel, men’s, women’s, kids and more. It’s super exciting!
Has it been a smooth road?
HA! Absolutely not. It was smooth-going though for many years, until the writer’s strike in November of 2007. That’s really when the bumpy road started because it was followed shortly after by the financial crash in 2008 and then things got really bad when my husband died in a freak accident in January of 2009. Overnight I became a widow with two kids under five years old in the middle of a recession with 6 clothing stores and 100 employees. My children became my top priority and I ended up having to close all my shops. It was heartbreaking, extremely difficult and took years to unravel.
Alright – so let’s talk business. What else should we know about you and your career so far?
I’m honored to be revered in the fashion industry as an innovative retailer, merchandiser and designer. What sets me apart is I have been in this industry now for 25 years and have an established, trusted brand that people can count on.
As a curator I do everything from sourcing, branding, merchandising, design, business strategy, marketing and more. I also do a ton of brand placement so I still get to work with brands all day everyday. My love and passion is, and always has been, discovering creative talent and collaborating with them to promote their brands. That connection is pure magic. It’s what I am most proud of; building brands from infancy and giving them a platform to shine. It’s why I am so happy about re-launching my website!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Like most businesses the fashion industry is ever-changing. I have been keeping an eye on it, trying to figure out what it wants to be since I closed my last store in 2012. I haven’t missed a single trade show, I was never out of the game. So when the pandemic hit, it became very clear what I needed to do. The white space was wide open so I jumped back in without a second thought to help guide and direct the change this industry needs. It is interesting because the same model I used 25 years ago is holding true today in the way I marketed brands then and what I am organically doing now. I am a drop ship model which gives me the ability to merchandise and feature as much of a brand as I want to give it the presence I think it needs to sell and be promoted online. Back in the store days, I had several huge brands on consignment allowing me to give them 12 feet of real estate on prime Robertson Blvd and feature a brand’s entire collection like they had their own in store. That model was always successful. It is very important to work together, to collaborate and be partners in a sense so we can grow together. We need one another to make it work, there has to be a trust factor. What I am doing now is not very different to what I did back then.
One important change I’ve noticed is the way brands and companies hold inventory now. No one can afford to invest the same amount of money that they used to on stock for their wholesale partnerships. Even for their own stores, it is a fine line on how much stock to carry.
Also the focus of apparel isn’t as important as it was back in the day. The young kids are buying vintage and secondhand and the older crowd honestly doesn’t really care as much as they used to. With the pandemic people are working from home and their social lives are completely different now so the emphasis is on other categories like wellness and home decor.
The focus on direct-to-consumer is the future of retail. Especially since online shopping is going to be the main method for consumer spending for a very, long time. But the problem is that without having an expert to guide the consumer, how would they know what to even look for? That is where I come in with my marketplace, the trusted source for things people need and want, the best of the best. Unique products that are on trend and things the shopper didn’t even realize they needed that are very important in enhancing their lives and giving stylish, thoughtful gifts. There is literally nowhere to shop anymore online or brick and mortar due to a huge shift with all the big box stores filing bankruptcy and most of the mom and pop stores going out of business. The change is fierce and retail and the way people shop will never be the same. The key now is service, delivery and keeping things simple.