Earlier this month, John Ransom placed brown paper over the windows of his clothing boutique, and placed a sign on the door: "relocating to jransomla.com."
J.Ransom, which sold pricey lines like Les Hommes, had once boasted celebrity shoppers like teen heartthrob Zac Efron and had its clothing featured in aspirational fashion magazine spreads.
But by the time last year's writers strike was over, the La Brea storefront had lost many of its prime consumers from the film business.
"We first started feeling the effects from our customers and studio services during the strike," Ransom told TheWrap. "Our neighborhood is full of actors that were strapped during this time. The declining economy was the last nail in the coffin for a lot of stores."
And as brick-and-mortar stores are forced to close their doors, many -- like Ransom -- are opting to continue their presence online, where their client base is not limited to geography and there's a much smaller overhead.
"With a store, you can only reach a limited amount of people, but the web opens our doors to customers throughout the whole country, even around the world," said Devon Leigh, a jewelry designer whose boutique opened on Third Street in 2003 but closed last March. "Our online business is growing every month, so I believe it will eventually surpass what we were selling in the store."
Her website, Leigh says, now enables potential shoppers to immediately locate and purchase pieces from her collection they might see in magazines like Elle or on celebrities like Jessica Simpson, who was wearing a pair of Leigh's hammered-gold earrings during a concert after which the media criticized her weight.
All over Los Angeles, stores are feeling the pinch. On the elite strip of Melrose Place in West Hollywood, Mulberry, Sergio Rossi and Lambertson Truex are no more.
On Santa Monica's luxe Montana Avenue, roughly 30 stores including Jane Smith and Il Primo Passo shoes have closed, and longtime street favorite Shabby Chic is finishing up a going-out-of-business sale after two decades.
A little farther south, on Santa Monica's Main Street -- a bourgeois bohemian's dream, flanked by the ocean and offering up 180 retail and restaurant outlets -- some 35 stores have shuttered within the last 18 months. Most of the stores on the street are high-end, and the few chain retailers are considered "friendly" or noncorporate, like Patagonia or Ben & Jerry's.
The problem is that with less money to spare, consumers are starting to think of many of the products lining the stores on these type of streets -- organic scented bars of soap, pricey tie-dyed sundresses and overstuffed, hand-embroidered pillows -- as unneccesary luxuries.
"Everybody's making choices with their money, and for most rent, medication, food and taking care of the kids doesn't leave enough income where they can shop and buy new clothing," said Gary Gordon, executive director of the Main Street Business Improvement Assocation.
"Every time a store closes, everybody feels it," said Mark Wain, chairman of the Montana Avenue Merchants Association.
