As I approach Reigning Champ?s Los Angeles store, the warm June day is nine hours old and the sun that governs Los Angeles is in session. The grid of asphalt patches near the South La Brea Avenue store reads as a geometrically modern evocation of the neighbourhood?s prehistoric tar pits: a fitting context for the Canadian-based streetwear brand. ?It?s the fourth of five Reigning Champ stores designed by Peter Cardew Architects, and the first in United States, where it serves as the brand?s flagship presence in that country.
The Los Angeles Reigning Champ store on La Brea Avenue is the Vancouver-based company’s first foray into the United States. Photo by Mike Kelly.
Like Cardew?s other Reigning Champ designs?two in Vancouver, two in Toronto?the 6,000-sq.-ft. L.A. store is composed of grey steel, white tile and straight-grained hemlock sourced from British Columbia. Where the walls are untiled, they are painted white and, depending on one?s position in relation to the lighting above, are reflected in the polished concrete floor. Rather than glue-and-paper catalogues gumming up the tiled seating areas, a yawn of wall space provides a surface onto which the company projects its upcoming season. Los Angeles. Photo by Mike Kelly.
Yet as much as these stores are outlets for premium athletic wear (ballcaps, hoodies, t-shirts and sweat pants), they function equally ?as a celebration of uncommodified space. If this was a bookstore, one might think it was in Chapter 11 bankrupt...