Urban planners will tell you there’s a few ways to combat urban sprawl. For Kevin Carney and his wife, Bo, the owners of LA’s Mohawk General Store, that means locating themselves next to other like-minded shops and getting people out of their cars and onto their feet. “Los Angeles can be a hard place to have a destination shop,” says Carney, who also owns The Generic Man and Generic Surplus clothing and shoe companies. “So we found a spot where we have great support from our neighbors, like Intelligentsia Coffee, Undefeated, and Cafe Stella. It makes it easier for people to park their cars, or bikes, mopeds, skateboards, whatever, if they know that there is more than one place they can visit and feel like they are in a city other than Los Angeles.” The Carneys first opened Mohawk in 2008 in Echo Park, selling their high-end thrifty finds and Generic goods. It went so well that they’re now in a bigger Silver Lake storefont, managing online sales, and incorporating a partner who imports mid-century furniture from Europe. “We are speaking a similar design language as our peers,” explains Carney, “which we feel is very important for a local business: to be in touch with their customers’ tastes and desires… but we still stick to the mantra of, ‘If we would not wear it, then it does not belong in the shop.'” So what does belong? Along with plenty of vintage stereo equipment, headphones, and accessories, a lot of US-made goods from the likes of Woolrich, Tanner Goods, and Gitman, plus Euro favorites Our Legacy, A.P.C., and Comme De Garçons, to, as Carney says, “keep the shop in balance.”

Mohawk General Store is located at 4401 West Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles.