Sugar and Spice and everything nice… That is what girls are made of. In DTLA, girls are also made of apparel, swimwear, dancewear, bodysuits and costumes and the fashion district is where they can find them, especially when they buy from Sugar Puss Apparel…
Owner Jennifer Summers first began designing her own clothes in San Francisco after earning a degree in fine art and psychology at UC Berkeley. At 22 she had finished college earlier than most, and admittedly too young to really know what she wanted out of life, she sought out fun by traveling the world as part of the electronic dance phenomena of the 90s. Dancing alongside the others in booty shorts and platform boots the main difference between her and her dancing counterparts was that Summers was making her own clothes.
No two outfits the same, she began wearing something she made that most girls who saw it stated they really wanted. In a time just before hip-hop clothing for women was to get started, Summers had designed a fluffy short vest with nighttime reflector seams that kept getting her compliments and gave her the confidence she needed to take the steps to sell her designs. Shortly after conjoining with a local hip-hop on Height Street, the store would establish a section for Sugar Puss in the front window. The store kept buying and the inventory kept growing. With each purchase, Summers found herself more and more immersed in the business aspect along with design.
Today, Summers is selling items from her showroom on 8th and Los Angeles in a historic building erected in 1912. Space features dramatic ceilings, concrete walls, and a ton of natural light and like most of the occupied floors of the fashion district, surrounded by fellow creatives.
Seeing as though her website is making sales on a daily basis, she’s now looking for ways to scale her business even bigger. With two production houses, master seamstress, trusty assistants and rotating interns, Sugar Puss is bracing itself for a lucrative summer and an even more extensive costume season this fall. This may be sweet but it means bigger orders that will push her and her crew to the limit.
So what makes Sugar Puss so popular? Sex.
Sugar Puss is in high demand from nightclub owners, burlesque troupes, aerialists and other types of performers who aren’t shy when it comes to flaunting their curves or showing off a bit more skin. She also gains inspirations from movies like Kill Bill, and comic book heroines like Wonder Woman.
“Wonder Woman pays my bills,” she said. But not. Because Sugar Puss booty shorts, are simply high waisted booty shorts with stars plus an original added gold trim so not to attract unwanted attention by the Wonder Woman brand, and because customers have expressed many times that Sugar Puss, in an age of cosplay, makes the most comfortable star-studded booty shorts they’ve ever worn.
Other designs come in shimmering metallic, stretch velvets, and plush pastels that hug whatever portions of the body they do cover and give the wearer the look of confidence and strong sexual prowess.
Women of all ages can wear Sugar Puss to feel empowered.
Retailers like Dolls Kill have begun carrying the line capturing an even younger audience. Jen is also launching a swimwear line to put the final piece to the puzzle. “I want to have a new collection of swimwear every year that goes with the rest of the stuff I make with a little added flavor to it.”
For those who may have lost their summer’s bod, Sugar Puss is moving into apparel with an ever popular plaid line that’s selling overseas as far off as Australia.
What started with lingerie, followed by bodysuits, high wasted pinup bottoms, and Costumes girls could move has snowballed into every girl can feel beautiful in. Sugar Puss Clothing is located at 817 S. Los Angeles. CA 90014. sugarpussclothing.com
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