We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Taylor King a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Taylor, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

The biggest trend in the retail industry is vintage. From resale clothing to true vintage to vintage home decor people are going crazy for this sustainable way of shopping. In 2011 I opened my store with a small selection of designer resale clothing pieces and vintage home decor. I started small collecting clothes from my mom, her friends and my friends and their moms. I also went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market to source unique one of a kind treasures. I grew up going to the Rose Bowl with my mom at the age of 2. I have since expanded my sourcing to Palm Desert, where my mom lives, Paris flea markets and vintage collectors and consignors. When people used to come into my store in the early years they were a bit confused by the clothing asking “is this used?”, “is this a thrift shop?” Only the savvy shoppers really understood and appreciated the concept. It wasn’t until The Real Real took over the resale world that people started accepting resale as cool and not “thrift”. Now I’ve seen resale designer goods in stores such as Fred Segal amongst other contemporary fashion stores. Not only is shopping resale so impactful on the environment but it’s so fun to find pieces that you can’t get anymore. It’s like wearing a time in history. My favorite being the 90’s and 2000’s.
As for home decor my most popular vintage items were and still are the mid-century 22k gold trim bar glasses. In 2011 I started with a beautiful collection of pristine barware. It’s not become more expensive and harder to find at prices I can resell because other stores have caught on to this coveted trend. Finding complete sets of high and low balls with pristine gold trim is always an “OMG” moment! I have customers who come in and tell me about the set they passed on and regret to this day. That’s the thing with vintage, you can’t think on it, you just have to get it!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Espionage is definitely not your typical gift store. We will go above and beyond to curate the perfect gift for our clients. Our curated gifts are called The Package and are available on our website. You can give us a detailed description of your giftee and we will do our best to curate accordingly. We started curating gifts for Creative Artist Agency and their celebrity clients. When an actor started a new movie their agent would want to send them a start-date gift to congratulate them. We started curating the gifts to match the theme of the movie and from there this concept went viral throughout the office. Curating gifts for the stars was such a thrill. From Oprah to Jennifer Anniston, Peter Dinklage, Arianna Huffington, Gayle King, Reese Witherspoon, Demi Moore, Kate Hudson….the list goes on. Now we do a lot of closing gifts for real estate agencies, primarily The Agency. They will tell us a little about the client and we’ll curate a beautiful gift to welcome them to their new home.
All of our gifts include a handwritten note and our wrapped in our signature black box.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I hate talking about the theft but we have suffered from grand and petty theft many times. When I first opened I was scammed with a thousand dollar sale of all fake hundreds. I made the mistake of filing an insurance claim because I was so upset by the whole situation and it increase the cost of my coverage. I was also hit by credit card fraud and filed another claim which messed things up even more with my coverage. Those are just two of many bad situations, break ins and vandalism I’ve encountered. Now I’ve just learned to suck it up, keep my head high and move on. The theft throughout LA has sky rocketed which is why I don’t take the risk of carrying any super high value items or carry cash in the store. It’s really sad to think people can steal from small businesses when we’ve worked so hard to even keep your doors open and make a living doing something that gives people so much joy. A lot of my small business peers have encountered traumatic situations like this and even worse. Somehow we just keep carrying on because the highs eventually outweigh the lows. Without small businesses the world would be so sterile and basic. The magic of a small business is something we need to keep strong. 12 years later we’ll still here to serve our community!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Around the 5 year mark I definitely thought I needed to have a backup plan and that was to get my real estate license. lol.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://espionagela.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/espionagela/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EspionageLA/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/espionage-los-angeles