Now young L.A. was developing a style all its own. I saw it in my colleagues, a determinedly hip staff who came to work at the Weekly’s ramshackle offices on eastern Sunset Boulevard in a combination of vintage clothing from the ’40s and ’50s, souvenirs of trips across the border to Mexico, and accessories handmade from unlikely materials — fake fur decorated with satin, plastic adorned with sequins. The women wore cowboy boots with their Donna Reed dresses. The men wore earrings. Someone had to report this. And without putting up too much of a fight, Jay agreed to let me have a shot at it...

In the next 10 years, Los Angeles would explode into a humming center of creativity, and the whole world would be focused on Melrose Avenue, on the newly reclaimed downtown lofts and on a coterie of fashion designers, decorators, architects and chefs whose influence reached around the globe.