Jeff Han
Take a walk with me. We are on Traction Avenue in the heart of the Los
That’s pretty crazy to think Apolis was sort of the first domino in
Angeles Arts District. There is a smell of cyprus and fig that baits us into
this train of Arts District shops. How did people treat the two of you
a store, Apolis Common Gallery. We follow.
when you first started?
Raan Parton, co-founder of Apolis: Global Citizen and Alchemy Works,
Raan: I think in high school people would say, ‘that’s cute, you’re being
stands by a candle that conveys the alluring scent. He stands with his
entrepreneurial.’ And then in college people looked at it like a graduate
wife, Lindsay Parton co-founder and buyer for Alchemy Works. Whether
project, so it wasn’t really taken seriously. But it’s really been in the last
it is Raan’s surfeit of humor or Lindsay’s seamless ability to make you feel
eight years where people have treated it as a serious thing, because there
like family, something makes us forget what we have planned for the day.
are a group of people we support.
They invite us to their other store, Alchemy Works, just a few steps away. We follow.
Was it ever discouraging that people just didn’t take it seriously?
I don’t know what it is. You don’t know what it is. But we can’t resist
Raan: There are certain people that catch the vision and are super
peering the shelves of products along the beach-white walls. Is it the light
supportive, and then there are people to this day who ask, ‘are you still
acoustic music playing loud enough to enjoy, but low enough to hear
doing that t-shirt company?’ You are kind of just drawn to people who
conversation? Is it the iced lattes we have in the tulip shaped glasses that
are supportive of your work, especially if your work is very personal
cool us on this warm summer’s day? We don’t know. But we’re hooked.
and is beyond an occupation with a credible employer. Because when people are saying, ‘oh so and so got a job with Chiat/Day or Goldman.
In the last decade Traction Avenue has become an incredible street
They’re all grown up.’ But if the science project you started fifteen years
of shops, restaurants, and art galleries. Did the shops come in at the
ago is your employer, there’s a psychology people have to get over to
same time or separately?
know that’s a real thing and you’re doing it permanently. It’s definitely segmented people who have been super supportive of us since the
Lindsay: Yeah, Apolis was before all of them (the other stores), but
beginning and then there are still people who still don’t get what we’re
the owner of the restaurant next door is a childhood friend of Raan
doing haha, which is fine.
and Shea’s, so they have known each other since elementary school. So when the owners of the restaurant were looking for a space Raan had
What are some myths for a twenty-something who is trying to start
suggested, ‘hey if you’re going to open anywhere why not open next to
their own company?
us as friends?’ It’s just that everyone who comes here is really passionate about creating really cool things. So there is a really easy transition for
Raan: I would say the idea of gaining experience in a big company
the new retailers now, I mean even the big ones that are now moving in
right now is a big myth. Majority of the companies, their industries are
like Shinola is moving in and Salt and Straw are following the smaller
getting re-imagined so quickly and so many of them are being disrupted,
boutique stores that are here. But everyone is just excited with that
so you kind of spend a lot of energy in a company that is not nimble
feeling of you’re building something together.
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