Reese Cooper is putting down roots. The 27-year-old designer opens RC Outdoor Supply Los Angeles at 3300 West Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake on Saturday, his first permanent retail address after a decade working out of Los Angeles.
The store is a bet that his customer will travel for the full experience rather than a single garment online, and that the outdoor-life universe he has built translates to a physical gathering place.
The 806-square-foot space will carry the RC Outdoor Supply line alongside RCI footwear, consolidating the designer’s rugged, outdoors-inflected wardrobe under one roof.
Cooper framed the move as a deliberate shift toward direct-to-consumer. I see a change in our company focusing more on direct consumer than wholesale, he said, timed to his tenth year in business.
For emerging American menswear, the opening models a quieter growth path: build the direct channel, own a neighborhood, and let the storefront do the storytelling that wholesale margins cannot support.
The search took roughly two years before the Sunset Boulevard location surfaced, positioned between his home in Atwater Village and his downtown LA studio. It’s like, if not now, when? he said. You’ve got to take the big swing at some point.
