Gail Ossipoff, director of special events at South Coast Plaza, recently took over planning and coordinating of the Costa Mesa shopping center’s big events, such as the Summer Food & Wine Festival.
Ossipoff also handles smaller events, including last week’s Orange County Concierge Association mixer with 300 people at South Coast Plaza’s Garden Terrace.
She also is hoping to use her past experience as communications director for the Newport Beach Conference & Visitors Bureau and get the fictional kids on the “The O.C.” eating and shopping at South Coast Plaza more often.
She said she has contacts at the show.
At her last gig, Ossipoff created a map that tourists could use to visit some of the places mentioned in the TV show.
“That map just went across the country,” she said.
It also ended up generating plenty of editorial mentions, she said.
The map was a way to solve the daily deluge of inquiries on where to find some of the places featured on the show such as Fashion Island or The Arches.
“How many times do I have to be hit in the head?” she said.
Other South Coast
South Coast Plaza just signed John Varvatos, a men’s clothing and accessory store started in New York’s Soho in 2000. Varvatos has three other shops in Las Vegas, Short Hills, N.J., and West Hollywood.
Also for men, Italian jeans maker Replay is set to open its second U.S. store at South Coast in September, according to a company release. Art dealer Brandon Davis is the U.S. spokesman for the company. Davis will have his own special edition of “Brandon” jeans, which will sell for about $300 to $500 a pair. The first store is in New York.
Other South Coast Plaza news: Louis Vuitton has moved into its temporary site next to Saks while its original store expands. Mac & Madi, a San Clemente-based children’s boutique, is set to open midsummer in Macy’s Home Store wing.
Funky Affirmation
Kimberly Funk, owner of The Latest Thing gift shop in Costa Mesa, said jewelry called “affirmation circles” had been selling like crazy since she began carrying the sterling silver pieces about four years ago.
Funk said her business more than doubled due to sales of the silver circles, with messages such as “believe” and “trust” written on them.
So she decided to spread the love and kick up sales.
From her Costa Mesa store, she packages the circles as a trio to represent a “story,” puts them on a chain and wholesales them nationally. The circles can be interchanged to create other messages such as “courage, strength, hope.” Other circles read “princess,” “dad,” or “world peace.”
Her primary form of advertisement is a weekly ad in US Weekly for about $2,900.
“It brings in a lot of orders,” she said.
Now they’re carried in Hallmark stores and Fred Segal in Los Angeles, as well as other mom and pop gift stores and jewelry shops. She’d like to see the jewelry in stores such as Hot Topic, Wet Seal and Spencer’s Gifts.
“We’ve had some larger chains looking at us,” she said.
But added business requires new expenses, Funk said. In order to be in the bigger stores, the jewelry has to be bar coded, she said. That’s her current project.
“We’re moving into a whole new paradigm here,” she said.
Funk opened the gift shop with her mom, Mary Lou Williams, 18 years ago, as a way to celebrate her recovery from alcoholism, she said.
The store also sells gifts such as books related to recoveries from various addictions. Although she’s not fond of the “new age” description, that would be one way to characterize the store, she said.
Acura’s Dent
The Acura RL sedan made a dent in Orange County’s luxury auto market during the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the Orange County Automobile Dealers Association’s Auto Outlook report.
Acura RL sales were up nearly 200% in the first quarter versus the same quarter last year, behind the Cadillac STS and the Chrysler 300. The Dodge Magnum followed Acura, with a 150% increase in registrations.
Other winners in the OC market are the sporty Mustang and the Mazda 3 sub compact. Sales for the new Mustang were up 53% in the first quarter.
Although under the radar screen, registrations for the Mazda 3 were up 107% in the first quarter, compared to the same quarter last year.
“Mazda 3 has been like a grand slam homerun,” the report said.
Of the new models, the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Toyota Tacoma were the only two new models to dip in registrations for the first quarter.
