"Don't touch the mannequin butt." I visited the Ghetto Couture paradise that is Santee Alley, Los Angeles, yesterday. Here are a few iPhone snapshots I took, when I wasn't busy buying $5 high-fashion "Channel" and "Luis Vuitton" counterfeit t-shirts or narco gun playsets.
I really enjoy visiting this part of LA. What is this fruit, the little yellow or green one in the bags: is this from local palm trees? Couldn't figure it out, and didn't think to ask the vendor myself, at the time.
The best finds yesterday were Nintendo knockoffs, really awful iPad clones for children, and a Super Mario clone where all the 8-bit sounds were ever so slightly off key. That and the Korean lady who will bedazzle any item of clothing you wish, with the rhinestone message of your choosing. Just $5. Shorthand gangbanger messages are popular, like "MS13," or "187." Saying that with rhinestones seems doubly wrong, but of course, it's not my place to judge.
And then, there was the bored sandwich-sign wearing guy, frying in the noonday LA heat, trying to coax Spanish-speaking customers into a nearby tienda. In Spanish, he yelled in a sing-songy circus barker's voice: "I'm literally fucking myself with this price! Come on in! Buy something!" While few followed his orders, the Spanish-speaking folks in the street thought his schtick was hilarious.
I asked a few of the vendors how business was. All I got were shaking heads. "Muy malo." You'd think that in a cheapskate's paradise, where there's so much to be had for under ten bucks (so many downscale bastard cousins of upmarket brands!), business would be reasonably steady. But no, the economic downturn hurts even here.
