When I was growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Loehmann’s was synonymous with Death.
Giant, brightly lit stores, filled with hideous mother-of-the-bride dresses, Loehmann’s was a glue trap for the crotchety. Everywhere you looked, elderly women with carrot-colored hair clawed through piles of beaded formals, tried dresses on right over their clothes and eyed each [...]


