trendsetters??

[americanragoc]

Hey everyone, so I started this blog website to accompany the store that I work at. I work at American Rag Cie at Fashion Island in Newport Beach and the reason I started it was, one, I love fashion and like sharing my latest fashion trends and finds with people. And two, I need to promote the store a bit more cuz nobody knows we're there since our store is kind of hidden. We sell mens (modern amusement, paul smith, nice collective, etc.) and women's (see by chloe, madison marcus, james perse, etc.), new and vintage clothing, shoes (marc jacobs, vans, john varvatos, etc.), a HUGE denim bar (inc. Earnest Sewn, Ksubi, Taverniti, PRPS, Cheap Monday, April 77, Diesel, Paper Denim, Citizens, J Brand, etc.), and we have a huge home and accessories store plus a cafe that has a European-inspired menu. Anywho, please check it out, let all your friends know about it, especially those trendsetting fashionsta friends of yours... I will try to update as frequent as possible. Thanks!

I also post what celebrity's are wearing that we have in our store or may carry something that looks like it.. plus just misc. entertainment news, etc..

http://americanragoc.blogspot.com

ENJOY!

ps. We are NOT affiliated with American Rag brand found at Macy's department stores.

pps. HEY! Got a trend you think I should know about and should put on the site? Let me know!

[Charlie Delta]

I really like to look at pictures of what my favorite celebrity's are wearing. I find it very inspiring, they sure are trendsetters!

Also could you please explain to me what a denimbar is? I've never fully grasped the concept.

[americanragoc]

Hi cotton duck. The whole concept behind a denim bar is essentially just a visually stimulating section of a retail store that features an extensive collection of premium denim lines such as Ksubi, Acne, Nudie, PRPS, Evisu, etc... Most high end retailers like Barney's Co-Op, Ron Herman, American Rag Cie, etc... have a denim bar. Hope that answers your question! Good Luck with everything! And hope you check back often on the American Rag blog site for updates!

- David.

[Charlie Delta]

Sure thing, will do!

See how easy it is to make new friends.......

[onemancult]

can i give you some really, really good advice?

i, and i'm sure a lot of us here, would absolutely love your blog if you

a. posted about what collections and items you had in store, along with prices

and

b. facilitated phone/email orders between the users of this website and american rag cie.

for a good idea of how this might work out, take a look at:

http://helloblackbird.blogspot.com/

honestly, you'd get a lot more attention talking about the store than you would

talking about anything else, and offering people who aren't nearby the store the chance to buy from the store would be monumental. you guys carry a lot of stuff that can be rather difficult to track down otherwise, and i personally know there have been times i'd been after something only to find out AR Cie stocked it, and given up, because of a lack of a website or anything.

i have a background in PR and marketing, and i guarantee no one cares about seeing other trendsetters. the only people who care about trendsetters are people who are followers, you want to reach out to people who set trends and take risks, the people who are on the edge before anyone else. american rag cie definitely caters to that sort of person in-store, so why change that for the blog?

[RAISED BY WOLVES]

I was all excited for pissbombs.

[Charlie Delta]

Wise words OMC

[onemancult]

my first instinct was yours, but then i realized there might be a happy way out of this

particular pre-flameout.

[herpsky]

at least i realized that all girls on my university campus will soon be

wearing super-short denim shorts

[BOORADLEY]

fuck shorts. skirts man... skirts...

[Louche]

i have a background in PR and marketing, and i guarantee no one cares about seeing other trendsetters. the only people who care about trendsetters are people who are followers, you want to reach out to people who set trends and take risks, the people who are on the edge before anyone else. american rag cie definitely caters to that sort of person in-store, so why change that for the blog?

I wholeheartedly agree! Well...at least when it comes to celebrities being trendsetters. A few years ago one wondered; "hmm...I wonder which brands celebrities wear." Then a lot of brands started pumping out press every time a celebrity wore their stuff. After a little while a certain celebrity thought of the idea of actually start making money themselves on this celebrity hype. I can't remember the name...hmm.........oooh, I got it!! It was these:

Sienna Miller

Beckham

Timberlake

J-Lo

Serena Williams

Jay-Z

Kimora Lee Simmons

Kanye West

Jessica Alba

Kelis

Kylie Minogue

Pamela Anderson

Pete Doherty

Macy Gray

Lenny Kravitz

Pharell

Andre 3000

Ryan Seacrest

P.Diddy

Olsen twins

Gwen Stefani

Eve

Eminem

Nelly

G-Unit

Jessica Simpson

Beyonce

Milla Jovovich

Liz Hurley

Elle Macpherson

Wilmer Valderrama

AmericanRagOC, apart from the celebrity hype stuff on your blog, I think it sounds like you have a really good thing going on. It's a bit on the commercial side to be my favorite store of all time....but I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of the brands you carry, and I would think that it is a combination of brands that will work really well as more customers find their way to your store.

Btw, that denim shorts Lindsay Lohan is wearing on your blog, is a Ksubi shorts called Albercurque in Worn Grey.

[hollaforadolla]

wow.. to be honest i dont really like the direction the blog is heading. i never been to the am rag in OC but the impression i get from the one on la brea is a laid back vibe, not a store for hyper teenagers that want to dress like their favorite celebrities..

[americanragoc]

yeah i was considering adding price ranges for all the brands but it would take forever since we carry so much. i just started the site so many things are still being worked out.. I will soon be adding Brand of the Week, featuring a brand and going more in-depth about them, and i will also add price ranges too.. we unfortuantely don't have an online store... so you can't really buy anything on the site... and if you look to the right of the page I actually do list all of our men's, women's, denim, and shoes stocklist and all the highlighted links will direct you to the brand's website for places around the country that sells their clothing and stuff... And I'm hoping this blog site becomes more commercial.. we are so fucking slow as far as traffic goes... we're located in an awkward location in the mall and so im really trying to garner a lot more attention for just the Fashion Island store. The La Brea location has been there for about 20 years and so they don't really need as much PR done for them... since pretty much everyone in LA knows about it. And actually our store does get a pretty high volume of ditzy blonde teenagers with daddy's credit card in our store. A few of the cast members from MTV's Laguna Beach has shopped in our store... just to give you an impression of the type of people who come in. But thanks for all the suggestions and comments. I will take them all into consideration... any more comments? i will be glad to hear all your suggestions. Thanks!

[keagan]

Oh my god.

[Charlie Delta]

WOW like OMG!!!!! I think there's even a couple of people actually from MTV's Laguna Beach posting on this very forum!

WOW!

[thelion1856]

i was going to say something about "premium denim" but then i realized people from an MTV reality show shop at the store. You superfutures know what im saying. lol. Rather see True Religion everywhere than the sufu brands.

also i think you should focus on some items in your store on your blog with some price ranges ect. and set some online or phone order thing up.

[Servo2000]

I can't stop thinking of that one Tool song, I think it's called Aenema.

The one about flushing Los Angeles into the ocean.

Is this the place that supposedly carries Chronicles of Never, or is that American Rag? Either way... dissappointing.

[Vitamian]

I want to protest Paris Hilton's imprisonment. I'll weep like Sanjaya's bitch with thick makeup running down my shiny face.

[onemancult]

hey hey hey did everyone miss the stocklist and automatically jump on the

lets be really fucking mean train? you're all being fucking dicks for no reason.

Aqua V

Aesthetic Industry

B. Son

BBlessing

Caste

Cheap Monday

Chimala

Corpus

Cosby

Crossley

Edun

Engineered Garments

Fred Perry

Goorin Brothers

Griffin

Holland Esquire

Insight

J.Lindeberg

James Perse

Kato

Ksubi

Lacoste

Left Field

Loden Dager

Loomstate

Maharishi

Masons

Modern Amusement

Moma

Nice Collective

NSF

Obey

Parke & Ronen

Paul Smith

Pleasure Principle

Prime Rib

Pringle

Rogan

Rogues Gallery

Rvca

Rxmance

Soho

Spiewak

Stussy

Surface To Air

Tailgate

Trovata

Umbro by Kim Jones

Unholy Matrimony

Uppercut

Wings and Horns

YMC

Yoko Devareaux

i dunno about you guys, but more than half of those labels are worth my while,

and a good percentage of that half are difficult to come by online. i, for one, would

much rather work with our new friend who happens to work in a half-decent store

than be a total dickface.

that being said, i have a better understanding of what you're trying to do with the blog, and hope it works out. i'm sure you've hit up plenty of other fashion forums, and i hope you're getting a better response there.

so, do you guys do phone orders?

[Servo2000]

I agree, they have a great brands list, and I'd love to see online orders. Obviously the blog isn't for us, and is largely representative of a people I don't particularly care for, but I think it would be completely amazing to see them take it in a different direction.

I have no doubt that they could: they carry engineered garments, for instance, which is in such stark contrast to this blog that I just barely understand how the two elements can be in one store. Obviously, as well, they understand the spending power of this group of people, and as a consequence, stock these sort of brands. I just wonder, then, why they don't also see that as buyers we spend massive amounts on online purchases, and at the same time, don't care about these "Trendsetters" by and large?

Maybe they could make a different blog catering to the other side of the apparent customer dichotomy.

[onemancult]

Servo, get a job at American Rag and sell us things for a discount.

[Servo2000]

If I wasn't out of town for six weeks this summer I would definitely oblige.

[thelion1856]

yeah i saw the stock list, definitley wanna hit that place up & see what they have. i wonder if thy actually carry variety of things from each brand. Interested in what they got for the Surface 2 Air stuff.

But the guy seriously gots to do a 180 with the blog and just give updates and pics of what has arrived in the store or what they have in the store. and get an online orders section.

[onemancult]

back to green, back to reality.

and, methinks it is a gal behind the blog.

[mike lowrey]

thanks for keeping it on track omc

[americanragoc]

To answer some of your questions... I would love to have an online store, however, I'm only an employee at the store and this site is my own venture. This is something I'm doing in my spare time, the low budget indie if you will, just to inform my clients about new arrivals and info about various related topics. It is also served to be a site for those who may not know too much about our company and that's why I'm zoning this blog site for specifically the Fashion Island location because many people still come in asking "what our company's all about" whereas the savvy shoppers in LA, and SF already know about it since our stores in those cities have been there for over two decades. I heard someone comment that I should just talk about new arrivals and prince ranges in those brands and add pics from those brands... I will do that but sometimes I know what's going to come in without it being in the store yet so I'm never sure what we'll be receiving exactly. Again, it's just to serve as a heads up to customers who may be interested in hearing about a product line. And again, I am not authorize to even set up an online buying site since this blog site is my own creation and not the company's. If we were to ever have an online store, it would be on the official website, www.amrag.com Thanks for all of you who came to my defense about what I'm trying to do, but I really don't take any of their criticism to heart since what I am doing is only to build awareness of our store and I think I am successfully doing so with any of the positive or negative responses I am getting on here.

It's so funny how people on here got so worked over that I used, "trendsetters?" as my headline. I wasn't trying to appeal to just one type of person. It was just a word that I thought would grab a reader's attention to be curious enough to open my bulletin. Which it did. And it's proven the celebrity's are trendsetters (not saying they're the only ones), stylist and buyers and designers will go to them to try and launch a concept, a new idea or look... so whether you think you're too good for that or not, it's fact and has played some influence into what most of you choose to wear. And if posting celebrity pics wearing clothes we sell is going to boost sales at our store, I'm going to do it.

And I didn't mention the fact that the Laguna Beach cast shopped here to name-drop or to try to say that our store's the shit because of it.. I mean come on, it's only the cast of Laguna Beach, not really much of anything. I mentioned them to inform you the type of people that come in... and to tell you the truth they've only been in a couple times since we've opened in September. To respond to Servo2000, just because they're they type who shop in our store, does not mean they're the only people we cater to. There's just an abundance of their types around the Newport area, them and their mom's and dad's.. and I look around at our store with the great merchandise that we have and think how awful it is when our bigger sales are for things like Ella Moss, James Perse, C&C California, Splendid, Mike & Chris, Lacoste... things that people can get almost everywhere and yet they skip out on great lines from designers that I feel deserve more recognition. So I don't feel the blog site is for just one type or the other... it's for everyone who's interested in good clothing and interested in reading about it. I feature different brands with unique clientele's. And so I would hope that more non-Laguna Beach-types come in. And believe me if I wanted to name-drop i wouldn't use the cast of MTV's Laguna Beach as a catalyst. I honestly don't believe we cater to anyone specific... come in and look around our store... there's not a sign that says "rich trendy white kids only.." or anything...

To Louche, who commented about Lindsay Lohan's shorts. Thanks! I figured they looked familiar.. just goes to show you that Ksubi's grey wash on their denim is very distinct. Thanks!

So please I do hope all of you who live in, or are visting, Southern California come and check out our Fashion Island location. Tell your family and friends.

And at the end of the day, good clothes are good clothes. Who cares who started the trend or who's buying into it, who cares if it's not a trend... If you like it, wear it.

Again, please understand that I am doing this for fun.. I will admit to all of you that I am an amature at site-building and all that and hope you realize that I am making an effort to incorporate your advice!

[Charlie Delta]

You're a very good sport!

So you do sell quite some brands that people here are interested in, maybe you can just look around here for a bit and maybe get inspired to change your blog so that it might be more appealing to people here. Not that I'm saying that the people on here are everything there is, but since you're here anyway.

Also, I think most people on here couldn't care less about what celebrities might or might not be wearing, so this is just not the best opening on here.

Maybe you should see with your bosses if you can do it in their time and with their money, since your doing it anyway, and you're basicly just promoting them for free.

And people on here don't really get that worked up about you using the word "trendsetters".

I for one was just fooling around.

Anyway, best of luck with you blog!

[fadingblue]

hey americanragoc, if you want to get commercial (and you get paid by sales comission) i would give my name to the people here and provide them with pictures and prices of the inventory. you would make major bank.

[jameshammonds]

david-

the blog is terrific. i think you should focus on how great the mens selection is:cool:

and that currently almost half of the store is 50% off. Practically giving it away.

[JesseJB]

I like the look of the place. Its like somewhere you could take your commoner (read: non-superfuture) friends and and you'd all walk out with something and be content.