As is often the case with creative individuals, designer Beau Lawrence’s career in fashion commenced with an “Aha!” moment. His happened in the summer of 1997, when he was 22, while browsing retail shops at the Newport Beach Pier. He smoothed his hand over the graphic T-shirts in Billabong when suddenly it hit him, “These guys are smart,” he thought. “They’re not any smarter than I am. I’m going to do the same thing. I’m going to build a brand.” He hopped in the car and drove nearly 90 miles from Newport to Valencia and optimistically declared to his parents his new career path: “Mom, Dad, I’m not going to be an architect. I’m going to be a fashion designer.”
He tells me this story almost 28 years after the fact, in the office space on the top floor of his men’s clothing store, Ace Rivington , the latest location of which he opened on October 17. This space represents what I believe to be a window into his mind and, consequently, his brand: Sentimental maps, Ace Rivington posters, fashion design books, photographs, model airplanes, letters, and other accolades line the walls and shelves of the intimate space, which functions like a man cave, if that man were a fashion designer with a love for 1930s aviation.
A desk occupies one corner; a couch, coffee table, and a chair occupy the other. I take the sofa; he takes the leather foldable chair opposite — though I feel it should be the other way around. This space, his office, is his sanctuary. It is adjacent to the design room, where a workman’s table occupies the room’s center, and a whole wall displays a miscellany of flannel shirts.