Making fashions pop: How Palos Verdes made a New York girl’s dreams come true
Renee Jaco in Poppi, her boutique located in Lunada Bay. Photo by David Fairchild
Renee Jaco knows what she likes when she sees it. For the fresh-faced, classically chic boutique owner, Palos Verdes Estates inspired love at first sight.
“It’s the place I had envisioned living, I just never knew it existed until I took a ride up here one day,” she recalls. “It was like, ‘Here it is. I love it.’”
Together with her husband, Brad, Jaco made the move from Manhattan Beach in 2007, while pregnant with her now three-year-old twins, Miles and Olivia. The East Coast transplants—Renee is from Garden City, New York, and Brad is from New Canaan, Connecticut—were immediately charmed by the traditional style neighborhoods of Palos Verdes Estates, which brought back memories of their respective hometowns.
“It reminds me of home where all the kids can play outside and you talk with your neighbors,” says Jaco. “It’s not so fast paced [that] people don’t stop and say hello. People remember you. The coffee shop always remembers what coffee I like to drink. And I love that!”
As a newcomer to the area, it was at her go-to coffee shop, St. Honoré Bistro Caffe, Jaco first started connecting with other PV residents. She soon found herself involved in various community groups—the Lunada Bay Homeowners Association, the Palos Verdes Junior Women’s Club—and equipped with plenty of advice on where to enroll her children in preschool—she chose Town & Country Nursery School.
Making the most of her maternity leave from a full-time job as a brand director for a large, contemporary denim company, Jaco spent her first weeks on the Peninsula exploring the retail scene. Jaco, a fashion industry veteran and lifelong lover of clothing, immediately noticed that finding some of her favorite designer brands required a trip “off the hill.”
“I wanted to do more up here, locally,” she explains. “I…just kept thinking, ‘I’d love to have a store.’”
With that goal in mind, Jaco quit her job and poured her energy into creating a local boutique filled with designer women’s wear and accessories. Jaco’s background in the apparel industry, which includes having worked with high-end department stores like Barneys New York and Fred Segal, gave her a good foundation. However, she quickly discovered that retail presented a very different set of challenges from those she dealt with as a wholesaler. She knew exactly who to turn to for help: her mother and role model, Claudia Raimondi.
Raimondi, an esthetician who started her own skincare business in Laguna Niguel in 2001, was the natural choice. To Jaco’s delight, Raimondi enthusiastically volunteered to partner with her in the boutique. Jaco knew that her mother’s retail experience and fashion savvy would perfectly complement her own strengths.
“She’s elegant, stylish and my best friend,” gushes Jaco. “She has been my mentor for doing something on my own. …She is really the driving force behind everything I do.”
Together, Jaco and Raimondi named the boutique Poppi. They wanted something cute and fun with some “pop” to it, and Poppi appealed to them both. The name also holds special meaning for their family.
“I thought of it more as poppy, the flower, but then my mother said, ‘Oh, it reminds me of your grandfather,’” Jaco remembers. “We called him Poppi. …And for both of us, [he] had a very special place in our hearts.”
After months of searching, Jaco found the perfect location for Poppi. She chose a light-filled, ground floor unit in the Lunada Bay shopping area. With its primary entrance on Palos Verdes Drive West, Poppi opens onto a pleasant courtyard at the far end of the store where shoppers can stroll and relax near a mosaic tile fountain. A gentle cross breeze flows through the boutique via the dual entrances.
For Poppi’s interiors, Jaco brought in her personal style. Clean lines and sweet details prevail. Simple white walls with white moldings, white garment racks, white hangers, and white shutter dressing room doors add to the bright, airy feeling of the boutique. Colorful, vintage glass bottles—flea market finds by Jaco and Poppi employee Daniella Diamond—make for whimsical jewelry display elements, while personal touches, like a framed black-and-white photograph of Jaco’s twins, add an intimate quality to the store.
“My house is very similar,” Jaco says. “I love shabby chic. I love white. I love vintage. …I like it to feel a little homey.”
Jaco’s personal tastes have also shaped the merchandise offered at Poppi. Many of her favorite brands, including DVF, Parker, Tory Burch and Trina Turk, are top sellers at Poppi. Jaco credits Brad’s industry connections—he’s a wholesaler of contemporary fashions with showrooms in both New York and Los Angeles—with facilitating her access to the brands she stocks at Poppi.
“I’m a very small store,” she explains, “but with my husband’s background I can get away with ordering just a few pieces from designers instead of…a full [order].”
Carrying a limited amount of each item is part of Jaco’s retail philosophy. She doesn’t want her clients feeling as though they are “seeing the same dress all around the hill.” In fact, she works diligently to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“If a customer is going to an event, I’ll write it down,” says Jaco. “I make sure no one else will be wearing [the same thing]. …And if they are, then they got it somewhere else.”
Although Jaco lacks formal training, having studied English and Creative Writing (not Business or Fashion) at San Diego State University, she has an innate gift for styling. On a recent day at Poppi, she exuded East Coast sophistication and California cool from behind her Ray-Ban aviators. Dressed in a Trina Turk maxi dress and a lightweight black cardigan, she certainly looked the part of the “it” girl any aspiring fashionista would go to for style advice.
“I have always had a good eye for selecting styles that can look good on different body types,” Jaco states. “I just want to be able to dress everybody.”
At Poppi, Jaco’s clients range from young, high school age women to mature women in their 70s and beyond. Her approach to dressing them is the same: help them find the look that suits them.
“I always tell my employees to just be honest,” says Jaco. “I want someone walking out of here looking and feeling [her] best.”
Designer fashion and style tips are just a small part of Jaco’s overall contribution to the PV community. She also uses Poppi as a vehicle to pursue her passion for charity work. Jaco collaborated with Project Runway, for example, a student-organized group at Palos Verdes High School that raises money to help bring food and medical care to malnourished children in Panama. Jaco was instrumental in the production of Project Runway’s charity fashion show last year, providing clothing and styling, as well as donating a handbag for raffle.
Among the many philanthropic endeavors Jaco has embraced since moving to the Peninsula, working with the National Charity League (NCL) is a personal favorite. An organization built around teams of mother-daughter volunteers, whose motto is “Mothers and Daughters Serving Communities Together,” the NCL mission resonates deeply with both Jaco and Raimondi who jumped at the opportunity to get Poppi involved. The boutique provided jeans and tops for a fashion show organized by the NCL’s Peninsula Chapter, which featured girls who would be recognized in a medallion ceremony that evening for outstanding achievements in community service.
Jaco is thrilled to give back to the place she now calls home. Poppi will celebrate its two-year anniversary this April and Jaco couldn’t be more grateful. “It’s been amazing to get the support of the community,” she says. “I love living here.”
Poppi boutique is located at 2325 Palos Verdes Drive West, Palos Verdes Estates; 310-544-7700; Mon-Wed, Sat 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., Thu-Fri 11 a.m.– 6 p.m., Sun 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.