William Rast Designers Invade Los Angeles

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Justin Timberlake's line William Rast is supposed to be all about LA style, but its chief designers are a Swede and an Italian who up until recently lived in New York. J. Lindeberg and his wife Marcella finally moved to Los Angeles in December, settling on a house "off the 13th hole of the Bel-Air Country Club." So how do they like Los Angeles? Per Marcella: "In terms of taste, L.A. is between Paris and Tokyo. For me, those are the three references." You might notice a certain major East Coast city that's not on that list. "New York is trapped in this conservative shell now. Which is annoying, because it was never like that before." Got it.

(Unrelated but mind-boggling postscript: The Los Angeles Times profile of the Lindebergs mentions a Charlie Sheen menswear line coming out this fall. Charlie Sheen. Menswear line. How is this possible?)
· Mining L.A. style for William Rast [LAT]