For these fashion buyers in L.A., SF and NYC, luxury isn’t what you’d expect

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This story is part of Image’s October Pleasure issue, which luxuriates in the personal pleasures of stylists, buyers, poets, designers and more.

Does our cultural understanding of luxury need a reset?

That’s the question that drove my conversations with five luxury buyers behind some of the most original concept stores in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. Because buyers are responsible for deciding what actually gets sold on the shop floor (you can think of them as professional treasure hunters, art curators and merchants all in one), I was interested in their personal ideas of luxury.

It was quickly established what luxury was not. It’s not defined by a high price tag or a designer label. Everyone I spoke to described a personal luxury that was grounded in their lived experiences. Knitting with cashmere yarn, driving a vintage car down Sunset Boulevard, people-watching in Paris. It was about how beauty shows up in their real lives, not online.

The inimitable André Leon Talley once described American fashion as a “famine of beauty.” In 2026, it’s tempting to say the same about luxury. But it’s still there, for anyone who is willing to experience it.

McMullen (San Francisco) (Sherri McMullen) McMullen has been bringing luxury fashion to the Bay Area for nearly two decades. The shop opened in Oakland in 2007, moved to Presidio Heights in San Francisco in 2024 and its new flagship store on Maiden Lane opened in September.

The owner was drawn to San Francisco for its intersection of creativity, technology and entrepreneurship. She designed the stores to feel like discovery spaces, where established houses sit alongside emerging designers, and every piece has a point of view. In a city that is not particularly known for its fashion scene, McMullen is a rare hub where designers like Amy Smilovic and Henrik Vibskov will host pop-ups and events when they’re in town.

As a veteran buyer, McMullen believes that luxury comes from intention, not price point or a label. She looks for exceptional craftsmanship, originality and pieces that create an emotional response. Her taste and eye for beauty has been cultivated through lived experiences, like exploring Mexico City’s La Lagunilla antique market, or sifting through the beauty shelves of a Parisian pharmacy.

“Style is how a woman moves through the world,” she muses.

McMullen’s luxury: “Paris. I spend a lot of time there, and it’s a city that continues to reveal itself to me no matter how often I return. My pleasure is having the time to experience it beyond work, walking without a destination, returning to places I love, discovering a new gallery or restaurant, and simply observing how people live and dress. There’s an ease and beauty in the everyday that always stays with me and continues to shape the way I see the world.”

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Maxfield L.A. (Los Angeles) Above: Alaïa’s homage to Pablo Picasso’s ceramic “Tanagras,” a series of women’s figures from 1947-1948. Six gowns by Pieter Mulier in partnership with the Picasso administration from the Alaïa 2022 summer-fall collection exhibited at Maxfield in the reconstructed 1957 Jean Prouvé “Structure Nomade.” (Maxfield L.A.) Below: Francis Bacon, “Three Portraits – Posthumous Portrait of George Dyer; Self-Portrait; Portrait of Lucian Freud,” 1973, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. (Jean-Pierre Dalbéra/Creative Commons) Founded by Tommy Perse in 1969, Maxfield was the first retail concept store in America of its kind, bringing together design-forward objects and unusual products alongside clothing.

Today, Sarah Stewart and Anthony Cataldo keep the spirit of Perse’s original idea alive in the West Hollywood store. Here, you can find rarities you can’t find online — like 18th century memento jewelry, a Transylvanian vampire-slaying kit or a vintage Paris-exclusive Chanel handbag.

The world of Maxfield begins before you even step in the store. In the parking lot, there’s a Jean Prouvé structure — a rare architectural piece that functions as a “luxury mic drop” because “no one else in the world has a Prouvé structure outside of France,” says Stewart. That alone draws in a certain kind of “if you know, you know ” design enthusiast into the store.

On any given Saturday, you could spot a Grammy- or Oscar-winning performer, a celebrity stylist, Beverly Hills ladies and kids who just came over from the Chrome Hearts store. It’s a perfect spot for people-watching in L.A.

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For Cataldo, luxury is quality you can feel, both in the craftsmanship and the emotion it elicits. “It’s that feeling of, wow, this is luxurious and I really look forward to having this for the rest of my life,” he explains. Stewart adds that luxury comes from authenticity, which — in this day and age — means something “created by and touched by human hands.”

(Anthony Cataldo) Stewart’s luxury: “Unexpected encounters with art. I remember going into Kenzo’s tea house in Paris after someone had rented it to show a collection. In the back room, where the models were changing their clothes, was a lithograpgh by Francis Bacon. When you see something like that in your regular working life, it reminds you of how much beauty there is in the world.”

Cataldo’s luxury: “Driving around L.A. in my old Mercedes. Everything about the car is manual, so when the traffic dies down and the sun’s about to go down, you hear the popping of the door and the rattle of the key; it’s all buildup to a moment where you roll the top down and then you’re driving down Sunset Boulevard. The sensory of it all, the lights, the smell, the air. I feel like I’m in an old Hollywood film.”

Outline (Brooklyn) Clockwise from top right: A handwritten tag from the sweater Austin knit for her husband with yarn from Green Mountain Spinnery in Vermont; attempting to spin her own yarn; during lockdown, Margaret Austin knit almost 100 pairs of tabi socks with all of her leftover yarn to raise money for bail funds. (Margaret Austin) “Our store is a place for real life,” Margaret Austin says. Outline, the shop she co-founded in 2022 with Julia Edelman and Hannah Rieke, was opened in response to several of her favorite stores shuttering during the pandemic. The idea was to open a womenswear boutique that felt personal, with a brand mix that could offer women special pieces to wear for their everyday lives.

The assortment ranges from fashion-girl staples like Margiela Tabis to brands with niche devoted followings, like Dosa, Colleen Allen and Auralee. The clientele is just as varied: artists and owners of creative businesses, visitors to New York, busy working mothers, bankers and lawyers — all of whom appreciate craftsmanship and quality fabrics.

Three years later, in 2025, Outline made the choice to indefinitely retire its e-commerce site in favor of a catalog printed twice a year. Avoiding the internet as much as possible — “it’s hard,” she admits — is how Austin cultivates her perspective as a buyer. She’s interested in what real women are thinking and doing in their lives, and wants the clothes at Outline to be pieces they will actually want to wear.

Ultimately, she believes luxury is “something that cuts no corners.”

Austin’s luxury: “I’m a knitter and so I love to treat myself (and the people I knit for) to really special yarn (for example cashmere or something hand-dyed in an amazing color).”

Mohawk General Store (Los Angeles) (Bo Carney) Mohawk General Store opened in 2008 in a tiny space in Echo Park, just months before the Great Recession hit. For Carney, the shop began almost as a personal project — something to focus on while she awaited her green card. With her husband, Kevin Carney, the two envisioned a space that contained everything they loved: fashion, design, home, lifestyle, art, vintage, high and low.

You can still see that vision today, where sumptuous leather Lemaire flats and technicolor Pleats Please tops sit alongside frilly silk scrunchies and incense from Kyoto. “We have a really interesting and sophisticated mix of clients,” Carney notes. There are the longtime locals who have been shopping there since the early days, plus a mix of creative types like directors, writers, chefs, models, stylists, designers and actors. Lately, she’s noticed more mother-daughter duos.

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She defines luxury as “the freedom to dress in a way that is true to your values.” It should encompass quality, integrity, beauty and function. For inspiration, Carney looks to old films, documentaries, travel and art encountered in person rather than online. She also believes that dialogue with clients is integral to honing a sharp perspective, season after season.

Carney’s luxury: “Efficiency and productivity are deemed so important these days. I have recently discovered the joy of doing nothing and going offline for certain periods of time. The days when I am able to unplug and just be able to do anything or nothing are some of the most enjoyable.”

Viv Chen is a Bay Area-based fashion writer, and founder of The Molehill newsletter.