Nikki L.
Nikki was born in South Korea, but immigrated to Miami in 1985, where she grew up, eventually moving to Southern California in 2002. In college, Nikki
studied fashion and then entered the garment business through her family’s business in Miami and Los Angeles.
Nikki has been working in the Garment District for over 25 years and is currently a clothing shop manager. She has a daughter, who is now attending college at UCLA.
In the Fashion District, Time Goes Fast
Interview by Joseph Jae In Kim
Where were you born?
I was born in South Korea in 1968. My whole family immigrated to Miami in 1985 when I was 18 years old. It wasn’t my choice to move to the United States. It was my parents’ choice. I was 18, and when you’re going through puberty, you don’t want to move anywhere. You don’t want to get separated from your friends or your comfortable job, so I was really angry at my parents.
I was really struggling the first two or three years. I grew up in Miami, and then I got married, and I moved to L.A. in 2002. I later lived in Valencia and Santa Clarita for about eight years and then I moved down to Koreatown in 2014.
When you first got to California, did you experience any culture shock?
At first, not really because I felt pretty comfortable living in Santa Clarita. The Santa Clarita area is more calm, spread out, and green like Florida. But then after eight or nine years, I had to move back to L.A., and yeah, it’s really different. Everything is so narrow with a lot of people and a lot of traffic.
Do you enjoy living in Koreatown?
Not really. I’m planning to move back to Florida at the end of this year. My whole family’s still down there. I’m the only one who’s out on the West Coast. I’m gonna reunite with my mom and with all my sisters. They’ve been telling me all the time, “Come back! Come back!” But you know, I had my daughter, so I had to wait for her to finish middle school and high school here. But thank God she’s finishing this year, so now I can move wherever I want. I’m thankful that I’m moving away from L.A.
If there was anything you would have wanted to change in Koreatown, what would it be?
You know, there’s too many homeless people around. K-Town has a lot of businesses, but there’s a lot of residential areas too. I mean, I don’t have anything against homeless people, but when they are around, they bring so much garbage; it’s too much. It wasn’t like this a couple years ago. Recently, I see every street with a blue tent with a mountain of sseuregi (쓰레기 — trash). Every morning, when I go to Berendo Street between 4th and 6th Street — oh my goodness, I see it every morning. Why’s the city neglecting them like that? I don’t get it!
Why did you start working in the Garment District?
First of all, I love fashion. My sister and I studied fashion when we were in college. And then you know how the first generation, when they move to the United States, they start businesses? My parents had handbag, gold, shoe, and electronic businesses, but because my sister and I were talking about fashion, my dad opened a clothing store in Florida, which they still have. I used to fly from Florida to L.A. every two weeks to purchase the garments and bring them back to Florida. So overall, I have 25 years of garment district experience I would say. In Florida, we don’t manufacture. Only L.A. manufactures and they import from manufacturers from China. So anybody who has business in Florida has to fly out to L.A. to purchase the garment. We have to do it. That’s how we started from 25 years ago until now.
How did you get the connections that you needed to get all the merchandise manufactured and sent here to sell?
I think a long time ago, when we were first opening the shop in Miami, one of our friends recommended us to the L.A. Garment District. So my dad and I flew out here for the first time, and then we looked around and people were really helpful. Back then, the Internet wasn’t there. But now, you can find all the sources you need by just typing in “Garment District” into a computer.
What do you do in the Garment District now, and how long have you been working in that role?
I’m a clothing store manager. For my current Monday-to-Friday job, this is my ninth year.
What kinds of skills would I need to have to be a successful clothing store manager?
You need to know about fashion. You have to be really friendly. You have to welcome all the customers — all the incoming customers and the online customers. You need to know how to create an invoice. You need to know how to use computers a little bit. There’s a lot of emailing and data-inputting going on, and a little bit of photoshop. If you know a lot about garments, it’s really fun.
Sometimes, the customers don’t know what they want, so you need to help them to create their garment — like what kind of colors are popular this year, what styles are selling, what are the hot sellers, you know, stuff like that. Especially in the Jobber Market, it’s more fast-paced, so you need to know a little bit of everything.
How did you learn all of the skills necessary to be a successful clothing store manager?
I think it’s because I’ve been in the Fashion District long enough, and I already had a fashion background with me. So I think that helps a lot because I love what I do, I love fashion, and I love meeting people.
Can you give me a brief description of day-to-day life in the Garment District?
I go to work at 8:30 a.m., I check the emails, I give instructions to my three co-workers — what styles are coming, what styles have been cut, what’s been selling really good lately, what’s out of stock — stuff like that. We have customers saying that they’re looking for 300 units, sometimes people look for 120 units, 150 units. Within a few days, we will all be sold out. We get these orders through emails, web orders, phone orders, and walk-in orders, but almost everything is digital. I have to go pick up [clothes] of that particular style. Every morning, we go over that, and then after that, I go over with my boss what styles are being cut and find the kinds of styles she’s looking for to bring to the store.
I help customers during the day. I manage [the store] at around 3:00 p.m. [I have to] make sure all the shipping goes out properly, and that cargo shippings are in-place. That’s about it. Every day, I’m so busy! Time goes really quickly. It’s Monday, and then in the blink of an eye, it’s Friday. That’s how fast time goes for me. Every [time], I say “Today’s Wednesday already? Today’s Friday already?” A couple weeks later, it’ll be Christmas again! In the Fashion District, time goes fast.
Do you get calls from customers or from people who manufacture clothes?
I only deal with the customers. My boss deals with the manufacturers. That’s another part: the crazy part, and an even harder responsibility than mine. It’s a whole different story. The manufacturing side of business is crazy. Also, production management in China is a very stressful job. You miss one communication with China [manufacturers], and the whole garment comes out wrong. That means money loss. That’s why it’s a really, really stressful job. There’s a lot of risk. For that role, you really need [to be] professional.
Who determines who gets what role in the company where you work?
I think it’s always been like that in this company in particular. My boss is a Chinese person from China. She knows what’s going on over there, but she didn’t have experience in the downtown Fashion District. This is only her third or fourth year, so she doesn’t know much about customers, she doesn’t know much about fashion in the U.S.A. I think that’s how my part, her part, and my co-worker’s parts are divided.
What do you think is the most difficult part about working in the Garment District?
I’d say that the most difficult part for me is taking care of hard customers. Most of the customers are nice, polite, and reasonable. But sometimes, there are customers who are really demanding and very rude. So we’re dealing with those kinds of customers who are most headache-giving, most unpleasant, and hard to deal with. And the second most difficult part is when the products come out wrong. That is very upsetting.
Can you tell me about one of those upsetting moments that you remember?
One item was selling really well. We had 300 units, but we oversold them. We got over 500 orders. So, only 300 people got it, right? And the rest of them had to wait until one more month. Some customers understand. Some people say, “Okay, I ordered a little later than the people in front of [me], so [I] got cut out.” So they’re saying that there’s no choice, they have to wait. And that’s good. But some customers are preachy. They are like, “You know, I’m a loyal customer, I always go before anybody.” It’s an interesting dilemma, you know? I have to explain to them, “We’re really sorry. We had an oversold product, and unfortunately, I had to cut you off. I have to make you wait until shipping comes in.” Some customers don’t like to wait. They throw everything at you, saying, “I’ll never buy from you,” or “Bad customer service.” That kind of stuff drives me crazy.
What else do you enjoy about the Garment District?
I get to see new fashion every single day, and I get to meet new faces every single day. And because I am getting older, I just like the fact that I have to get up every morning, I have a place to go, I have work to do, I got something to do — this just makes me feel alive. I mean, sometimes, I don’t want to get up in the morning. But I think that the routine that I have is important to me. Last year, when the pandemic had two months [of lockdown] and we couldn’t get out of the house, I was really happy during the first two weeks getting up in the morning. But then after that I’m like, “There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go.” It was really miserable for me.
These days, the COVID-19 rate is decreasing, but is still present, so a lot of people are afraid of going outside. How did the pandemic affect your work in the Garment District?
I would say the pandemic didn’t affect my work much. When COVID happened in March 2020, we had to close for two months but we started to re-open in early June. And from June until September 2020 — people didn’t visit, but they [continued to] purchase [clothes] online, so the Garment District still had [online] business going on even if we didn’t have any face-to-face interaction last year. All the regular customers’ orders were online. So business-wise, we were thinking [ahead]. But since November this year, people started coming out with the masks on to shop. It’s pretty busy.
I visited the Garment District with the Koreatown Storytelling Program, and we
took pictures and talked to some of the business owners. Apparently, a lot of people at the beginning of the pandemic were relying on the Garment District to make masks. Can you confirm if that’s true in your case as well?
I don’t understand what you mean by depending on the Garment District [for masks]. We never made masks. In the Garment District, some areas do sell fabrics. But where I am, I don’t know anything about fabrics, since
I only work with apparel.
There seems to be a lot of racial diversity within the Garment District. Have you had trouble trying to adapt to it? How did you react to it?
Well, in the L.A. Garment District, people used to come in from all over the country. Right now, I don’t see any Europeans, but I still see a lot of South Americans, people from Mexico, people from Colombia, and even people from Israel. But before the pandemic, people were coming from everywhere: England, France, even South Africa.
But I guess they don’t fly anymore. So, these days, [there are] a lot of locals and a lot of people from different states. Some people are difficult; some people are nice. I get these kinds of attitudes from people every day, but what can I say?
Have you ever been racially discriminated against in your experience of working in the Garment District?
Not in the Garment District. I had that experience once when I was 20 years old, because back then, I couldn’t speak English. Maybe I misunderstood that person — I don’t know. But I haven’t experienced discrimination in the Garment District.
Do you know about the AAPI hate crimes, particularly targeting the elderly?
Oh yeah, I heard about it. I saw clips. In New York, somebody hit an old Asian woman, but nobody helped. Even in downtown L.A. — a couple of guys were trying to do something to an Asian boy.
How do the recent AAPI hate crimes make you feel?
It is really upsetting. It’s really scary. But one thing I don’t understand is that it’s not only Asian people who get attacked. Black people get attacked, there’s Mexicans getting attacked, there’s white folks getting attacked. But these days, why are they only talking about Asian people? Is it because of COVID? I don’t understand that part. When I see the news and when I talk to people around, [I see that] not only Asian Americans get this kind of thing. A lot of Black people hate Black people, white people hate white people. Lots of Korean gangs doing bad stuff to Koreans too, you know what I mean? But this thing is happening every single day in our lives and in our society. But why is the media making it such a big deal? That’s the part I don’t understand these days. People get killed every day. Bad things are happening everyday to every kind of people. This is nothing new, actually. It’s been happening as long as I remember, every single day. People get killed. People get raped.
I think you’re definitely right about this kind of stuff happening every day. I think it’s just making more of an impact on the community these days because it’s actually being recorded. I thought that they would have happened more at the beginning of the pandemic because people associated COVID with Asian people. It definitely makes me scared. Have these recent events affected your work in the Garment District?
Not really.
I know that not a lot of people really know too much about the Garment District; they just know it’s where clothes are. What do you wish other people knew about the work that you do or about working in the Garment District?
I haven’t thought about that. I don’t know.
During the Koreatown Storytelling Program workshops, we talked about racial hierarchies in the Garment District. Do you know anything about that? Do you think there’s a racial hierarchy?
Not that I know of.
Would you consider the community tight-knit or supportive, or something else?
It’s something else. This is all individual companies, and we don’t interact from one company to another company. We only interact with our company, co-workers, and customers. We don’t even know what’s going on outside of the store.
That’s really interesting. I thought that as neighbors, you would all know each other.
We only say hi, and that’s it. We don’t even know each others’ names. Yeah, it’s crazy. Even every morning, we say hi and that’s about it. It’s because there are so many things going on in each store. I think that’s why. We don’t have time to find out what’s happening in your store. You know what I mean? We don’t have time for that! [Laughs].
Have you learned any life lessons from working in the garment industry and living in Koreatown that you would like to share?
I would say I was a pretty lazy person until I started working under people. I was initially a boss back then. But then, I failed pretty much, so I had to work for the boss, and it was a pretty different experience. After some time of working for someone, I had to be on time, I had to be professional. I couldn’t be lazy. I had to work as I was told or as my boss expected. So that was a big lesson. I can’t be lazy while working. I shouldn’t be lazy when I am by myself, but I was [doing that]. [As a separate lesson], there are so many different kinds of people. It doesn’t matter what color you are. There are good people and bad people of every color, in every nation. Especially in the Fashion District, since you meet people from everywhere.