18 years have gone by quicker than you can say “Adam Bomb.”With The Hundreds’ recent announcement that it would close its store on Fairfax Avenue after a nearly two-decade run, two different chapters were concluded. The first to reach its end was that of The Hundreds’ retail presence. The brand has long been known for its immersive brick-and-mortar experiences, which, at their zenith, included — besides the Fairfax District store — hyper-localized outposts on both Post Street in San Fransisco (a design partly inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and encased in rock pulled from the very same quarry where the California gold rush began over a decade ago), Grand Street in New York City (a space that saluted Soho’s heritage and continued the Space Odyssey theme from the Post Street store and a shop in Santa Monica). 1 of 2The Hundreds
2 of 2The Hundreds
That’s not even mentioning the two different iterations of The Hundreds’ flagships around Fairfax, both pictured above. 7909 Rosewood, the brand’s first flagship, was tucked on a quiet, narrow side street between Fairfax and Rosewood Avenues, perfectly encapsulating streetwear’s IYKYK ethos when it opened in 2007. The second, a much larger establishment that served as a metaphor for the brand’s growth and deep Los Angeles roots, was around the corner at 501 Fairfax Avenue and featured an immersive installation inspired by the La Brea Tar Pits.
But the second conclusion — and what it represents — is the most bittersweet.
The Hundreds is the final OG Fairfax streetwear brand to close its doors for good.
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At its peak from the mid-’00s through the 2010s, Fairfax — which replaced Melrose Avenue as LA’s most in-the-know shopping stretch when Supreme LA opened in 2004 — was one of the biggest streetwear hubs in the world, rivaled only by New York’s Lower East Side and Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood. The retailers on the street read like an all-star team: The Hundreds. Supreme. Diamond Supply Co. HUF. Crooks & Castles. In later days, Pink Dolphin and the Odd Future store (which has since been replaced by a GOLF WANG store). Today, if you stroll down the three-block stretch by Fairfax High School, you’ll find outfits like The Gold Gods, RIPNDIP, and Heaven by Marc Jacobs nestled amongst the area’s original Jewish businesses like Kanter’s Deli and a few OG holdouts like Flight Club and Hall of Fame.
“When we moved in, the only players [on Fairfax] at the time were Supreme and Reserve [a bookstore],” The Hundreds co-founder Bobby Hundreds said in a 2019 interview. “We felt like it could be where the future of LA was. We ended up moving in, and it turned into our clubhouse. Ben [Hundreds, The Hundreds co-founder] and I would work there, but people would just start hanging out in the afternoon. And then I would blog about it. We’d be playing music, smoking, drinking. We would just hang out there all day and all
