ARCHIVES :: NOVEMBER 2002 :: ENTERPRISE

A Gift for Gifts

Billy Shire's Knick-Knack Shop
Helps to Launch Offbeat Trends,
Fashions and Fads

By ANA CAMPOY
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Billy Shire, owner of a Los Angeles store called Wacko, is considered a revolutionary influence in the gift industry—a retailer who routinely introduces concepts and products that become the norm at shops and chains around the country.

In 1971, with a Los Angeles store called Soap Plant, he pioneered the marketing of soap as a gift. He subsequently added coffee-table books—at the time, an avant garde notion for a gift shop—and helped push Polynesian, Mexican and Hindu kitsch into the mainstream.

“Because he is one of the first people to give new ideas a chance, other people look to Billy for direction,” says Cina Hodge, owner of Showroom 506, a Los Angeles gift wholesaler, who has sold products to Mr. Shire for the past 20 years.

Soap Plant is now part of Wacko and together they generate about $1.8 million in sales a year, a small portion of which is sold online (via www.soapplant.com). Among the 30,000 offbeat items the store carries are bobbing-head dolls, Japanese toys and Buddha candles—“tchotchkes,” as Mr. Shire refers to most of his merchandise, that usually, sooner or later, make it big.

Tiki Mugs

 Mr. Shire’s strategy is seemingly simple: He just sells what he likes. He explains: “I’m a student of art and style and culture … that’s kind of my business—to know what could work.”

And mostly it does. When Mr. Shire became interested in launching a Polynesian revival 20 years ago, bamboo furniture was nowhere to be found in mainstream venues like gift shows. Now big retail chains such as Crate & Barrel and Restoration Hardware carry Tiki-inspired items. Target has a line of Tiki shirts. And Urban Outfitters is currently carrying the same Tiki mugs that Mr. Shire’s store has been selling since the mid-1980s.

Urban Outfitters relies on young, fashion-savvy buyers who usually visit offbeat stores like Wacko for ideas, says Greg Lehmkuhl, the chain’s assistant creative director. “It starts underground, and then more people become aware of it and more people want it because they see their friends with it,” Mr. Lehmkuhl says, explaining how objects like the Tiki mug end up at the mall.

Celebrities including Marilyn Manson, Ben Stiller and Leonardo Di Caprio have been spotted at Mr. Shire’s 5,500-square-foot store in Los Angeles’s trendy Los Feliz neighborhood. And manufacturers frequently ask him for his opinion. For example, Mike Becker, head of Funko, a company that makes bo bbing-head dolls, went to Mr. Shire for advice on what characters to make.

Retail Lab

 Mr. Shire, 51 years old, attributes his particular style to growing up in the 1960s. He maintains that most trends today are recycled themes from that era. His job, he says, is “cherry-picking” the best examples. “There’s good kitsch and bad kitsch,” he says. “I look for future collectibles, things that will become good kitsch.”

Mr. Shire’s main outlet for his creativity is his store, which employs 18 and is arranged by categories. There’s a monkey section, consisting of statuettes of primates. Other themes include dice, dinosaurs, robots, bugs, skulls and rubber ducks. His toy section features items like a Jesus action figure and dolls representing the rock group KISS.

Mr. Shire never puts anything on sale and does all the buying himself, mainly at gift shows. He systematically scans every booth. “It takes a lot of work,” he says. “It’s not like running a liquor store or supermarket where you just restock.”

He pays special attention to packaging, especially when buying for his candy section. He selects most items based on their retro look rather than their flavor. At a recent gift show, he pointed at boxes of gourmet chocolate wrapped in gold paper that he said would be inadmissible packaging at his store. “These people, they don’t know what they are doing,” he said.

During the same expedition, he walked down the aisles scanning heaps of stuffed animals, metallic outdoor decorations and other knickknacks, most of them made in China. He stopped to examine a red Virgin of Guadalupe fiber-optic lamp that was sitting among more placid-looking angels in pastel-colored robes. He immediately bought the lamp for $18.50 and plans to sell it at Wacko for $40.

Mr. Shire’s eye for trends extends to art as well. The cartoon-style paintings of the 1950s martini generation created by an artist called Shag (real name: Josh Agle) were first exhibited at Mr. Shire’s art gallery La Luz de Jesus, located inside Wacko. Shag’s imagery then spread to other galleries and is now mass-produced on greeting cards, pens and the like.