Mission Accomplished?
The commodification of S.F.’s hottest strip.
On Valencia Street on a recent weekday, the neighborhood’s creative melange that led The Chronicle to dub it “the new bohemia” in 1995 seems very much intact. Longtime Latino businesses, coffeehouses and bookstores, along with record and gift shops, dot the corridor from 14th Street to 24th Street. New stores are mixed in — some shiny, modern white boxes, but many wearing that wornpaint, hipster aesthetic that has been associated with the neighborhood for at least 20 years.
But look closer, and it’s clear the Mission aesthetic is now sleekly minimalist. Many storefronts that once housed accidentally kitschy junk shops are carefully curated affairs now; the wooden fruit crates displaying merchandise are part of a well-crafted scheme instead of genuine found objects.
The once new bohemia is now one of an ever-growing list of “fauxhemias.”
The twentysomethings out on the street midday in many ways resemble their twentysomething counterparts from back then, too: Women favor slip dresses or printed maxis with cut-off denim vests or baggy military jackets; the men wear flannel, hoodies or workman-style shirts over jeans. The look draws heavily from the thrift chic that “Valencia” author Michelle Tea says defined the era she wrote about in her 2000 novel.
“I didn’t buy a new piece of clothing the entire decade of the ’90s,” says Tea, who now lives in Los Angeles with her wife and son. “I got all my clothes at Thrift Town or at Clothes Contact by the Pound,” both closed in the past two years.
“Even though the Mission was rough in the ’90s, there were so many bars and cafes hosting poetry events and art shows,” says Tea. “Rents were cheap. It’s where you lived to focus on your activism and art.”
“The people that were attracted to S.F. were part of various countercultures like skateboarding, punk or street art,” retailer Benny Gold wrote in an essay for website Hypebeast last year, as he prepared to move from his 6-year old location on 16th between Valencia and Guerrero to a new location on Valencia.
But while the area continues to attract young urbanites, their demographics — and the businesses attracting them — have changed. The longtime working-class families and artists have been largely replaced by prosperous Millennial and Generation X creatives who can afford the neighborhood’s apartments and new condos. A 2014 Chronicle story put retail rents on Valencia at more than $5 a square foot, about equal to rents in Union Square; prices have only gone up in the past three years.
And even though the Mission’s indie spirit seems to have been preserved, at least outwardly, that DIY ethos is now a commodity, as easy to purchase and consume as a $10 juice in a mason jar.
Nowhere is this more visible than on Valencia Street. A 10-block stretch is increasingly home to trendy businesses and Instagrammable boutiques, which invite browsing and photos.
“I try my best to not judge people, but you can definitely spot a new S.F. resident from the back of any line at a hip Mission coffee spot,” Gold wrote. “We’ve since traded in our band T-shirts and well-worn jeans for Google and Dropbox tees and a pleated pair of Dockers.”
The news that San Francisco’s ultra-popular online retailer Everlane, a Millennial favorite known for its unadorned wardrobe basics and price transparency, plans to open a full-fledged brick-and-mortar shop later this year at 461 Valencia St. underlines just how much the corridor is transforming, yet again. It’s a move that would have been unthinkable in the nondigital, indie designer age of 10 years ago.
The story isn’t unique to San Francisco: As with Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or Mississippi Avenue in Portland, Ore., the Mission’s idiosyncratic aesthetic has evolved into a commercially viable, exportable lifestyle.
The surging tech industry in San Francisco has contributed to the neighborhood’s everclimbing residential and retail rents. The 2008 closure of New College of California (which occupied a trio of buildings on the street between 18th and 19th streets) and the rise of million-dollar corner-condo complexes have changed up the urban fabric, bringing in more ground-level services like mini-health clinics and banks. The pedestrian-friendly widened sidewalks and arty parklets, the recently renovated Dolores Park (the city’s picnicking mecca) and, most recently, the Ford GoBike stations have all contributed to making the Mission even more popular, and some would say overrun, for locals and tourists alike.
Some pockets of the neighborhood can feel like a Millennial-oriented Neverland. Fastcasual dining options, with the boisterous noise-levels of dorm cafeterias, are packed most nights. Galleries and gift shops peddle twee wares like unicorn embroideries, ironic piñatas and appropriated holy candles bearing the images of pop culture icons instead of religious ones. Seemingly every other store sells some variation on the techie bro messenger bag, and there are so many ice cream spots that one wonders why the lines at Smitten and Bi-Rite are longer than ever.
Retailer and fashion designer Julienne Weston, who operated the Weston Wear boutique on Valencia between 16th and 17th streets for 12 years, has watched the neighborhood’s transition up close.
“The people that were attracted to S.F. were part of various countercultures like skateboarding, punk or street art.” Benny Gold