Designer Leila Shams Loves This Market in DTLA

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Los Angeles has more stores than anyone could physically tackle, but somehow we always keep returning to the usual suspects. To break out of the rut, we've asked some local shopping and fashion gurus to provide their hidden retail gems—those unique stores around LA that we might not all know about. Cue the Beatles: We're about to get a little help from our friends.

Image via Yelp

Leila Shams worked as a corporate design director for over a decade before starting her namesake company, Leila Shams. Since launching her first collection, 'Weird Science,' (which landed her in retailers like Curve, Elyse Walker and Harvey Nichols in the UK), her creations have been spotted on ladies like Vanessa Hudgens, Nicki Minaj, Fergie and Rose McGowan. Most recently, Leila signed on as a cast member of the new reality series which premieres in early 2013. When we asked her where she liked to shop in LA, she spilled the beans on a very special DTLA market.

"Every major boutique and department store gets late adds from San Pedro Wholesale Mart. It's a vast outdoor mall with hundreds of little factory outlets. Let's say a retailer missed the skull trend, or it's colder than expected and they run out of sweaters. They can buy directly from San Pedro Wholesale Mart and have it in their store in a week. But they mark it up so the prices are similar to their designer stuff. They'll sell something they got for $15 from San Pedro Wholesale Mart for $150. Mystique Boutique gets all their product from San Pedro, but since they don't carry any designers, they only mark it up about 50%. So you pay $30 for the same thing. And it's the creme de la creme of San Pedro crap in my opinion."

· San Pedro Wholesale Mart [Official Site]
· Leila Shams [Official Site]
· All Shopping Confidential Posts [Racked LA]

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Curve

154 N Robertson Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90048 310-360-8008 Visit Website

San Pedro Wholesale Mar

1100 South San Pedro St, Los Angeles, CA 90015