The LA Fashion District is in dire need of a Black Friday miracle

Lizzie Osorio remembers a flood of Crazy Shoes customers in early May, looking for embroidered shoes and suede dresses.

Beyoncé had four concerts at Sophie Stadium in Los Angeles for her Cowboy Carter tour. So the store tucked away on Santee Alley, where 24-year-old Osorio works selling cowboy boots and other Western-style clothing, was the perfect stop for fans.

Osorio expected, or perhaps expected, the store to see similar traffic during the early Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

After President Trump’s immigration crisis, that remains to be seen. Over the summer, several attacks in the neighborhood sparked protests. But fears of mass arrests and evictions turned the fashion district into a ghost town for weeks, with stores shuttered and terrified workers staying home.

The story was similar in other business districts that needed immigrants. Although conditions have improved in recent months, merchants are still feeling the pinch and are in dire need of a holiday retail miracle.

Shoppers walk through Santee Alley in the city’s fashion district, where business owners are working to recover from losses caused by recent immigration enforcement.

Local officials and activists are encouraging people to shop on Black Friday and beyond, including holding festivals throughout the weekend. But it’s unclear how many will feel safe enough to leave.

Some merchants “make a living selling, customer to customer,” said Anthony Rodriguez, director of the Fashion District Business Development District, a private group of property owners in the area.

“These are not big box stores,” Rodriguez said. “These are family-owned and, in some cases, generational businesses that need LA’s help more than ever. If people can come down and spend just $10 to $15 … then we can make a difference.”

On Monday, Osorio said she made just one sale: a pair of utility boots.

She said she opened the store at 9:30 a.m. and was selling shoes at 2 p.m., $30 off their regular price, because customers were reluctant to spend money.

“We’re looking forward to a good time,” Osorio said. “Honestly, I felt like this week was going to be good, but it’s been really, really slow. We’re just praying and keeping the faith. Let’s see what happens.”

Small businesses in the area — which includes the historically vibrant, open-air shopping corridor Santee Alley, known for bargain prices — are looking for ways to offset some of their losses through holiday sales.

Shoppers stroll along Santi Alley in the city’s fashion district. More than a half-dozen businesses on the street and on Santee Street said their sales were flat after the onslaught of federal immigration raids, some doing better than others.

Foot traffic in the area is back to levels that began before the federal immigration crackdown in Los Angeles in early June, according to the Business Development District.

But Rodriguez said traffic changes daily and is at the “mercy” of rumors, sometimes about federal enforcement operations, that spread among business and community members’ groups.

Such alerts prompt businesses to close at a moment’s notice, with “people literally running out of their stores,” Rodriguez said. He said that one day US Fish and Wildlife Service agents were searching the area and encountered Customs and Border Protection officers.

Rodriguez said there are “very valid reasons” to heed the warnings but that mitigating their harmful effects is critical to economic recovery.

Visitors to shops and businesses in the Fashion District dropped dramatically in the week after the initial attacks on June 6. Foot traffic in the Fashion District dropped 33% while visitors to Santee Ely, specifically the Business Development District, dropped 50%.

Rodriguez said it will take at least three weeks for foot traffic to recover, and even retailers are struggling because “people aren’t spending like they used to.”

And normal holiday growth is not yet evident, Rodriguez said.

“So far, we’re not seeing the increase in leave that we’ve seen in previous years,” he said.

In May, the fashion district saw about 1.98 million visitors, while in June that number dropped to 1.2 million, according to the group. In September, the district saw 1.3 million visitors, down from 1.5 million visitors in the same period last year.

Santee Alley in the city’s fashion district where business owners are working to recover from losses caused by recent immigration enforcement.

Pop music blared from the open doors on Santee Street Monday afternoon as the light dimmed. A lot of the shops were closed, but many were open, ready to welcome tourists and local families doing their holiday shopping. Groups of buyers gathered. The street was livelier than in the weeks after the first summer attacks.

Maria Fortes, 43, and her daughter had been in the area for more than seven hours since 9 a.m. to shop for a dress for a December wedding. They had traveled more than an hour from Eastvale in Riverside County to look for formal dresses and shoes. Fortes said he often shops around the holidays and it “feels emptier” than in years past.

“It’s kind of scary and lonely,” Fortes said.

More than a half-dozen businesses on Coulee and Santee Streets told The Times that their sales have fallen after the onslaught of federal immigration raids, with some doing better than others. Anchor stores saw a dip but not hard, with online sales remaining strong. An accessory store owner said business was down 30%, while an employee at a jewelry store said business was down 70%.

A local business association known as Somos Los Callejones and the Los Angeles Tenants Association partnered with Councilwoman Isabelle Jurado to host a street festival on Saturday to attract shoppers ahead of Black Friday.

According to Jurado’s office, the festival attracted about 500 participants. Vendors set up booths and racks of clothing along Olympic Boulevard between Santee Street and Maple Avenue, which was closed to vehicular traffic. The event featured live music, and organizers raffled off 10 turkeys.

Shoppers stroll along Maple Avenue in the city’s fashion district.

Jurado said in an interview that the bird raffing highlighted the food insecurity in the region that many families face. Some have lost their primary breadwinners to the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, and children have begun dropping out of school to support their families.

“Some were very excited to win [turkeys]Food insecurity was “really significant,” Jurado said.

“These are the realities that people are dealing with, like their loved ones being taken,” she said.

The business said they are marketing deals when possible – and emphasizing customer service.

California Mirage Jewelry Design Center, which occupies prime real estate at the entrance to Santee Alley and has been in operation since the 1990s, has been offering 30% off all items since last week, a promotion that will last through Black Friday.

Carolina Medrano, 38, a store employee who rearranged gold chains on Monday evening, said that even with the discount, business was “very slow”.

“I believe everyone is struggling,” said Jessica Morales, 40, an employee at a nearby clothing retailer who did not give the name of the store because she did not have permission from her supervisor.

As she used a long pole with a hook to hang pink dresses on a high rack, Morales noted that some customers became aggressive in trying to negotiate a lower price, threatening to go to other vendors.

He tries to emphasize the quality and variety of the store’s clothing, and that some other nearby retailers are no longer able to stock their inventory well.

Some clients talk about canceling quinceañeras, or their spouses tell them to stay home from parties for fear of attacks, Morales said.

“People are trying to save their money. Everyone is afraid to leave,” Morales said. “You have to find a way to connect with customers.”

Women’s clothing is on display at the corner of Olympic Boulevard and Maple Avenue in the city’s fashion district, where business owners are working to recover from losses caused by recent immigration enforcement.

The hit to sales as a result of the immigration attacks comes at a time when the local economy is already struggling, weakened by the rise of e-commerce, travel disruptions from the COVID-19 shutdowns and inflation and other economic pressures pushing consumers to spend less.

Ilse Metchek, past president of the California Fashion Assn. Who has worked in the industry since the 1950s, said the goods sold at Santee Alley have changed in recent years. This has shifted from good quality surplus products of local brands – which are then sold at bargain prices – to imitation or cheap goods, often imported.

Famously, Richard Riordan, who served as mayor of Los Angeles from 1993 to 2001, “took a more public approach. [through Santee Alley] Where he paid $10 for a silk shirt and made a big deal about it,” Mitchek said.

Then-President Reagan’s move to grant amnesty, legal status and citizenship to many undocumented immigrants paved the way for the fashion economy to flourish, she said.

The immigration crisis in recent years, regulations that have increased labor costs and the Chinese manufacturing boom of the early 2000s have created a difficult economy for California fashion brands and workers.

“It’s a pity,” Mitchek said. “There’s a clear pattern to why and what happened. It’s not nuclear physics.”

Gloria Andrade, 53, has been operating a make-up, accessories and miscellaneous electronics business at the Maple Alley Fashion Center in downtown LA for about 25 years. In May, her family opened another store nearby on Santee Alley, without anticipating the attacks and the resulting decline.

A view of the corner of Olympic Avenue and Santee Street in the city’s fashion district where business owners are working to recover from damage caused by recent immigration enforcement.

Andrade said the rent for her new place is about $4,500, and she’s two months behind. Many neighboring businesses are in the same situation, she said.

“It’s the first day of the holiday and nobody came,” she said of the Thanksgiving holiday. “We’ll wait until Christmas to see how it goes.”