A new clothing store that specializes in fun and affordable clothing opened in Pacific Palisades.
Popular Poison, a clothing store that specializes in T-shirts, hoodies and other comfortable, but affordable wear, opened this week as a pop-up store at 15224 Sunset, in the space vacated by Valentina’s.
This is the first brick-and-mortar location for store owner and Palisadian Tim Maduro, who said: “Part of my inspiration for a store in the Palisades was for my kids, their friends and families to have a thriving and exciting destination spot and a place to get fun gear.”
Although the store is only 700 sq.ft., Maduro is also a manufacturer, and he noted, “We can stock inventory like a large-box retailer. We currently have over 150 styles in the store, all with at least one or two pieces of each size.”
He and wife Marie moved to Palisades in 2011 and the couple’s two daughters, Leah and Kona, went to Palisades Elementary and are now at Revere and Palisades High School.
“My kids and their friends will work some hours at the store,” Maduro told Circling the News. “I’m hoping to make the store a fun place to frequent for both parents and kids.”
Maduro, who grew up in New York City, played football in college, but when injuries took away his athletic dream, he started working in NYC’s garment district.
He moved to Los Angeles in 2008 to run a large import company that specialized in young men’s woven shirts but grew dissatisfied with the lead times needed in the market.
Venturing out on his own, Maduro opened Popular Poison in 2013. “I wanted to create a fast fashion business model that could turn/produce in two to three weeks so my retail partners could react to fresh trends from the music industry and other areas of trend (street-surf-skate) that my design team looks at for inspiration.”
Relying on in-house designers, the company publishes 75 new graphic styles a week and ships about 25 to 30 styles every two weeks.
“The Palisades store will get new styles every week,” Maduro said, noting that he had developed printer-and-dye house relationships within five miles of downtown and also in Vernon. “All the initial printers, dye houses and specialty finishing houses I launched with Popular Poison are still my supply partners today.”
Maduro said that he buys his T-shirts and hoodies from one of the largest mill suppliers in the United States and that “100 percent of all my designs and washes are manufactured and embellished in downtown L.A.”
If you can’t make it to Sunset, you can visit his online store (popular-poison.com), which he started two years ago. The prices are affordable with T-shirts running about $20 and hoodies around $40.
However, be aware that at least six to eight pieces of some styles can only be bought at the store. “We plan to add some other exciting apparel/footwear into the mix,” Maduro said.