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"  Do you know where the peach chiffon dress is? The one with the ruffles?&amp;quot; Elkin designer Kara Smith asks the clerk at Flounce, a vintage emporium in L.A.&amp;#039;s Echo Park bursting with Esther Williams\u2013esque swimsuits and Ladies of the Canyon dresses. Informed it&amp;#039;s been sold, she deflates. Luckily, she comes across a white nightie that equally strikes her fancy. Across the room, her sister and codesigner, Brit, is trying on a sweeping maxidress. &amp;quot;Brit gets away with wearing the really beautiful gowns here. She can wear them on the street with beat-up boots to go get coffee, and she just gets away with it. Me? I would look like a train wreck,&amp;quot; Kara says, laughing. Flounce is one of the local stops the sisters frequent to cull ideas for their line, a favorite of L.A.&amp;#039;s musician set. &amp;quot;We don&amp;#039;t really ever feel comfortable on the West Side or in a polished place,&amp;quot; Brit says. Instead, they thumb through paperbacks at used-book mecca Stories and sketch over brunch at Little Dom&amp;#039;s. &amp;quot;One night we could be sipping champagne at an art gallery, and the next night we could be [wearing] Converse in the alley of a punk show,&amp;quot; says Brit, somehow managing to sound sincere rather than hipsterish. That dichotomy fuels their designs, which range from tough (a wraparound leather dress) to prim (a professorial tweed blazer). Click here to see images of the Elkin sisters&amp;#039; bohemian L.A. tour! Elkin is tapping into a specific vein of L.A. culture: Like Laurel Canyon in the &amp;#039;70s, L.A.&amp;#039;s East Side is &amp;quot;this weird little artists&amp;#039; community where you always run into each other,&amp;quot; Brit says. The Elkin &amp;quot;cave&amp;quot;\u2014Kara&amp;#039;s garage turned studio\u2014has become a clubhouse of sorts for that community, with musician pals like Jenny Lewis and Z Berg always dropping by. For holiday, Elkin is debuting a capsule collection inspired by another friend, Girls actress Zosia Mamet (with an assist from Mamet&amp;#039;s half-sister, Clara, star of ABC sitcom The Neighbors). The five pieces (four dresses and a jacket) are an homage to the &amp;#039;70s New York of Patti Smith&amp;#039;s memoir Just Kids\u2014the Mamets are New York\u2013bred theater scions, daughters of playwright David\u2014but the collection also has its heart firmly in Los Angeles. Settling into the cave, where their grandmother&amp;#039;s wasp-waisted prom dress hangs on the wall, I learn that the Pasadena-bred sisters couldn&amp;#039;t be more different. Brit, 29, reads Hemingway and favors the mournful country-folk of Kitty Wells, while Kara, 31, devours true-crime books and hip-hop. BlackBerry snaps of their dogs reveal that Kara has a black chihuahua; Brit, a 100-pound albino bulldog. But they&amp;#039;re on the same page when it comes to design; they are already at work on spring 2013. Past seasons have drawn from frontier-era brothels and Gothic romance; this time, per Kara, &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re doing kind of a [John] Fante, &amp;#039;30s L.A., under the sea, mermaid, bondagey, weird thing.&amp;quot; Sounds like all that digging has paid off. Elkin&amp;#039;s Los Angeles Stories Books and Caf\u00E9 1716 West Sunset Boulevard, 213-413-3733 &amp;quot;The vibe is great\u2014artsy and sort of beatnik-feeling.&amp;quot; Flounce Vintage 1555 Echo Park Avenue, 213-481-1975 &amp;quot;[Spring 2013] is very &amp;#039;30s poolside-chic, and the store is filled with the most insane inspiration.&amp;quot; Little Dom&amp;#039;s 2128 Hillhurst Avenue, 323-661-0055 The sisters love hitting the New York\u2013style deli wing of the Los Feliz hot spot. Figaro Bistrot 1802 North Vermont Avenue, 323-662-1587 &amp;quot;Paris meets NYC, but right in the heart of Los Feliz.&amp;quot; Click here to see images of the Elkin sisters&amp;#039; bohemian L.A. tour! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/a14319/elkin-designers-interview/?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=ELM&link=-SMT-ELM>