When you’ve decided to make Melrose Avenue your shopping destination for an afternoon, you have to ask yourself if you’re looking for some thrifty one-of-a-kind pieces or if you’d rather splurge on some trendy leading designer threads. If you go for the first option definitely stick to the blocks east of Fairfax. There you will find vintage shops such as Wasteland and also those “one off” boutiques that carry the reject merchandise from Forever 21 and men’s clothing emblazoned with oversized crosses and douchebag worthy catchphrases—both brought to you by Affliction Clothing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve frequented that side of Melrose several times during my time at USC but that was when practically every weekend included some sort of themed party on the social calendar.
If your credit cards yearn for a bit of irresponsible spending, then west of Fairfax is where you shall take your plastic pocket-sized friends. Many leading designers have decided to make Melrose Avenue, west of Fairfax, the location for their LA residencies which include designs by Diesel, Isabel Marant and my personal favorite, Marc Jacobs. Mr. Marc loves this area so much he has four boutiques all within the same block radius. Aside from freestanding brick and mortar designer locales, you also have some neat boutiques that offer truly fresh, contemporary styles. Make sure you hit up Fred Segal, Ron Herman and TenOverSix. And for the visitors and tourists, swing by Kitson or DASH and pretend to shop in hopes of spotting a Kardashian sister at “work.”
Regardless of which direction on Melrose you choose for shopping, one thing is for sure, you'll end the outing with quite the haul of new clothing!
Check out the best stores for men's fashion and women's fashion