On Friday morning, outside Kalon Studios in Atwater Village—15 miles from Altadena—the sky is blue and smells like ash. A dozen people quietly wait by the door. Many of them wear masks, and a few of them hold infant children. One couple bounces their baby on their knees.
Inside, Michaele Simmering addresses three volunteers wearing name tags. On a table to her right is neatly folded children’s clothing by Misha & Puff. Just beyond is a rack with Levi’s jean jackets and a shelf of graphic tees. “This should be as normal as possible,” she says in a calm, hushed tone, gesturing to the clothes around her. “When goods come in, it’s easy to put them out in the bins—but I don’t want to do that. I want us to merchandise like at a regular store,” she says.
The volunteers look at a piece of paper as Simmering talks. There are 26 bullet points; “no bins, no chaos ” is bolded. Other rules follow: “Keep the space clean and merchandise tidy at all times,” “Let them know we have a changing room,” “Offer them water, coffee,” “No more than two individuals or one family in the space at a given time.” After several minutes of instruction, the volunteers open the door. They smile as the family with a baby walks in.
Simmering isn’t in the retail business—or wasn’t. In normal times, before the Los Angeles fire burned through 40,000 acres and the entire neighborhoods of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, she designed furniture for Kalon Studios, the critically acclaimed contemporary brand she co-founded with her husband Johann Pauwen, out of her Atwater studio. Yet when her city started burning, she felt the human urge to do something. So she did, turning Kalon’s showroom into a free boutique that offered clothing, bath products, and other goods for those who lost their homes in what is expected to be the most expensive natural disaster in history.
Yet she didn’t want it to feel like something born out of a natural disaster so great, the government sent in the National Guard. She wanted it to feel normal. Like you stumbled into a chic, well-curated shop with well-made goods and decided to try something on in the fitting room. If it looks good, you get it, if not, you browse the racks for something else. “Our number one priority is that people can have a dignified, human-centered experience where they are not here just to get a pair of pants because they have no pants. They’re here to find something they actually like…that makes them feel like themselves,” she says.
