From Paris to Los Angeles, Jen Azoulay Finds the Vintage World Is Calling Her Name
Growing up as a little girl in Paris, Jen Azoulay remembers being taken by her mother to her grandmother’s closet to view a collection of magical styles from the ’60s and ’70s.
“We used to stay for hours,” recalled Azoulay, who has lived in Los Angeles for many years now. “The three of us would try on her jackets and jewelry and laugh for hours.”
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“Then when I came to Los Angeles and had no money, I wondered, how was I going to dress [affordably]? So, I used to thrift shop all the time,” said the stylist, creative director and fashion influencer who started her own vintage label in 2020 called Jen Wonders Studio. “Everyone would stop me on the street or at parties and ask, ‘Where did you get this?’“
So began Azoulay’s journey into the world of vintage fashion, which is embarking on a new chapter. She recently expanded into a new online platform, jenwonders.com, which also includes adding vintage furniture, home furnishings and home accessories.
The website offers a selection of wardrobe staples from Jen Wonders Studio — Azoulay’s own capsule of upcycled and revamped classic blazers, coats and dresses from renowned luxury brands such as Oscar de la Renta, Gucci, Saint Laurent and Ralph Lauren found by traveling to flea markets and checking out international vendors.
Many of the clothing pieces have her distinctive touch with added vintage embellishments including gold buttons, rhinestone rope trim, rhinestone stars or crescent moons for an artistic, one-of-a-kind look.
To complement the new site, she is opening a vintage concept showroom in a midcentury house she owns in the Los Angeles suburb of Reseda. She and her family lived there for a while before moving to Calabasas, California. Now, it is dedicated to all things vintage.
It is filled with vintage clothing and postmodern furniture, which can be seen via private appointment or viewed online. The one-of-a-kind postmodern furniture and designer pieces in her collection include homeware, antique jewelry, vintage clothing by Celine, artwork by Slim Aarons, Picasso lithographs and furniture by Tobia Scarpa.
New finds will be rotated into the stylized rooms on a regular basis. Price points range from $90 for antique sculptures and vases, $1,000 for clothing and up to $2,500 for vintage furniture.
“We live in a time where everything is the same, and I wanted to create [clothing] pieces that you’re not going to find on someone else at a party,” Azoulay said. “It started by recycling vintage blazers and later items like dresses and coats.”
Azoulay has no formal fashion-design training, but she did spend a lot of after-school time at her mother’s lingerie store called Annabelle in Paris’ 8th arrondissement. “The memory of seeing women trying on clothes in such an intimate manner stayed with me. And since then, I always wanted to create for them,” Azoulay said.
She also learned about fashion through her years as an editorial assistant at Elle magazine in Paris, and working in visual merchandising for Christian Dior Couture in Paris, and then in Los Angeles, as the director of visual merchandising, West Coast.
When her vintage label started attracting a lot of attention, she came up with the idea of establishing a showroom in her former residence where people can touch and feel her creations and unique finds. “When I decided to do a studio, I thought it would be good to furnish it only with vintage pieces that are really treasures,” she said.
Currently, the living room is filled with a sleek off-white sofa, which sells for $2,190, two zebra chairs with wooden arms, each with a $1,350 price tag, and a black-and-white egg table lamp for $490. They were all sourced from Palm Springs, Calif.
Starting early this spring, her showroom can be booked for intimate events and photo shoots. “I wanted to use the studio as a place where you can have events and collaborations with artists,” Azoulay noted. “With people who really share the same interests as me.”
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