About

The path to LaliSimone begins with a little girl who had no word yet for what she loved.

Long before there was a name for it, there was a feeling: rummaging through bags of hand-me-downs from tías and neighbors, hunting yard sales and secondhand racks, and finding something that felt like me in clothes other people had already lived in. Back then, secondhand wasn’t cool. It was necessity. But nobody could convince me it wasn’t absolutely cool anyway, and my knack for styling was proof.

The line between a childhood aspiration and a real business is never straight. Mine wound through Telegraph Ave in Berkeley in the 90s, where I fell hard for the vintage shops that shaped my eye: Wasteland back when it was a tiny storefront on Oxford, Mars Mercantile, Futura, Buffalo Exchange, and a string of mom-and-pop shops that don’t exist anymore. It wound through New York, where a college friend’s nudge sent me chasing fashion styling for real: nearly eight years freelancing, working with celebrities, seeing my work published, all while holding down a tech job through the dot-com years. It wound back to the Bay Area, back into Silicon Valley, until the end of 2015, when my company was acquired, merged, and I was RIF’d.

That ending was the opening. LaliSimone launched online in April 2017. My first popup was a month-long residency at Mischief, in Oakland’s Laurel neighborhood. A storefront opened up in that same neighborhood, and on December 9, 2017, I opened the doors. It all happened fast.

Nearly ten years in, I’ve evolved right alongside the business: owner, curator, visionary. And because life keeps you on your toes, a fire in the building in August 2024 put our physical doors on pause until the slow restoration is complete. In the meantime, you’ll find LaliSimone at exclusive markets across San Francisco, Oakland, Marin, and Los Angeles, shopping exclusive edits at Mercy Vintage in Rockridge, or online, open 24/7.

What’s never changed

The store has evolved. The ethos hasn’t: style-forward and ethically sourced aren’t in tension, they’re the same choice. I’m proof. So are the style mavens who started as customers and became friends. Incredible style, entirely secondhand, is not a compromise. It’s the whole point.

What’s next

Ten years of curating other people’s clothes taught me something else: I don’t just love finding the right piece. I love reimagining it. IAMWHATIAM is where that instinct gets to run: garments I’ve reworked and reinvented with my own hand, one-of-a-kind by nature since nothing else exists quite like it. It’s not a separate brand so much as the next room in the same house, LaliSimone’s curatorial eye turned toward creation instead of discovery.

If you’ve made it this far, I trust we’re of a like mind. Curious about vintage, a lifelong lover, a collector, it doesn’t matter which. Shopping secondhand means making a conscious choice to be exactly who you are, keeping one more piece out of a landfill along the way.

Thank you for being here. I’m glad we’re doing this together.