A Hip Shop's Magnetic Beat
Commonwealth Exerts a Fashionable Pull in Adams Morgan

By Chris Richards
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, December 1, 2008

The music is always on, and it's always loud. Never earsplitting but loud enough that the teens and 20-somethings who frequent the place occasionally have to shout as they navigate racks of limesicle-colored denim and T-shirts adorned with fornicating silver skeletons. Kanye West's "Touch the Sky" comes pumping over the stereo, as if trying to drown out the store's more eye-popping garments in some kind of synesthetic coup.

This is a Saturday -- though it could be any day -- at Commonwealth, Washington's premier street-wear retailer, a buzzy boutique on a sleepy block in the armpit of Adams Morgan. Since the store opened on Florida Avenue NW early last year, Commonwealth's selection of kaleidoscopic footwear and exclusive name brands has drawn a broad clientele of skaters, prep-schoolers, DJs, undergrads, sneaker fetishists, even the occasional rap star. At this particular moment, business feels brisk, but soon Nikes will be boxed up, Visas will be swiped, receipts will be signed, fists will be bumped and then . . . nothing. The stereo stays cranked, leaving poor Kanye to rap to an empty sales floor for the next 34 minutes.

Such is the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of Commonwealth. Ebb and flow is typical of any retail operation, but this place goes from the hottest of hot spots to a dead zone and then back again. Downtime can feel particularly surreal: The blaring beats and motley togs call out to no one in particular. Yet when Commonwealth -- along with its two neighboring spinoff shops, Stussy and For the Greater Good -- is bustling, the block feels like the city's most exciting cultural hub.

"You can mingle and make friends, and you never know who's gonna fall through," says Darnelle Hines, a computer programmer who spends his evenings and weekends producing music and publishing an indie hip-hop magazine called the Kapital. He finds time to visit Commonwealth about three times a week: to browse, to shop, to chat people up. "We can all talk about music here. It's just a good place to be."

Sometimes it's the place to be. Many of Washington's premier DJs, rappers and go-go musicians shop here, as have other rap celebs: Lupe Fiasco, Bun B, Ja Rule among them. The store has hosted appearances by Q-Tip, DJ A-Trak, Wale and renowned rap duo the Clipse, who are scheduled to visit today to unveil a fashion line and a mix tape. (Get there early; expect a throng.)

This particular afternoon, young professionals and University of Maryland students are riffling through Commonwealth's autumn gear: color-block bubble vests, lumberjack-plaid shirts with embroidered epaulets, hooded sweatshirts patterned to resemble the topography of a waffle. The T-shirts are even splashier, some emblazoned with all-caps mantras that range from cryptic haiku ("NEVER NOT WORKING CLASS HERO") to youthful declarations of purpose ("PARTY WHILE YOU'RE STILL LIVING"). Other designs tweak pop-culture images into punny, visual gags. One T-shirt pastes the word "Malcolm" over an album cover belonging to the '80s punk band X. Another simply reads "Apocalypse Wow!"

High school kids hover around the shoe rack, Commonwealth's main artery and pleasure center. There's an odd, puffy sneaker on display (available in both Nintendo-cartridge gray and safety-cone orange) that looks more like a sleeping bag for your foot than a functional shoe. On the opposite shelf is a series of high-tops that look like cosmonauts' boots made from canvas scraps. And there's an entire spectrum of candy-colored Nikes so vivid, one might start to conflate new-sneaker-smell with something more confectionary. It all feels as if Dorothy woke up at Foot Locker.

Taylor Jones, 16, and his friend Sam Lazerwitz, 17, both of Northwest Washington, visit Commonwealth about once a month, searching for new ways to buck their high school's dress code. "We have to wear a polo and khakis," says Jones of the policy at the Potomac School in McLean. "But we can wear whatever shoes we want. Shoes are a huge thing. I think [Commonwealth] is top of the line."

Wale, the emerging local rapper who's given Commonwealth the nod in a couple of his songs, can relate to that sentiment. "I think for kids in D.C., to look at that row of stores and then be like, 'This is kind of like Fairfax-in-L.A. -- D.C. is coming up' might bring a sense of pride when they see correlations to other cities that are 'on the map,' " the rapper says via his manager.

Wale has made official and unofficial appearances at Commonwealth in the past year, and the store seems to relish giving its customers the opportunity to interact with the artists who normally live only in their iPods. And even when rappers drop in unannounced, most of them seem happy to chop it up with the clientele.

"Whenever Bun B comes in, he always gives everyone a pound," says J. Bynumb, a sales associate at Commonwealth. "Real respectful, real chill cat. One day he came in and said, 'What's up?' to me and this customer I was helping out. My man was like, 'Yo, who's that?' " When Bynumb told him it was the Texas rapper, the guy dashed out to his car to yank the Bun B disc out of his CD player. "It's really cool," Bynumb says. "This guy comes up and says hi to you and you got his album in your car."

It's not just unannounced rappers dropping in. It's also unannounced, overzealous young skateboarders. "We actually had this little 9-year-old here last week just busting kick flips in front of the store asking us for a sponsorship," says Lucas Pierce, an assistant manager at Stussy. "That's the kind of stuff that happens around here."

Stussy opened its doors in February, and For the Greater Good opened in September -- further proof that Commonwealth co-owners Larry Incognito and Oman Quiambao are digging in on Florida Avenue. "If we could do more I would," Incognito says. "If we could have a gallery on this block, if I could have my own cafe with cool music and some nice art on the wall, I'd do it."

For now, it's just these two spinoff shops. Stussy (an East Coast outpost for the veteran California surf and skate brand) offers street wear at a lower price point, while Greater Good appeals to street-wear graduates with thicker wallets. Greater Good manager Rhett Richardson is quick to point toward the shop's grown-up shoe rack. "You can't wear sneakers into some of the clubs in D.C.," he says. "So these are edgy shoes but still dress-up enough to get you into the club."

Abdul Abdi comes sauntering out of Greater Good in a black sweater, dark jeans and a belt covered in black pyramid studs. He's visiting from Oakland, Calif., but was familiar with Commonwealth before even stepping off the plane. "I would always go to their Web site, but this is my first time here in D.C. and I'm just checking it out," he says, hoisting up his shopping bag from the store. "This is a little more upscale. Nicer clothes, nice jeans."

The store's reputation has thrived online -- enough to garner mentions in the pages of Details and GQ -- but when it comes to traditional advertising, Quiambao is uninterested. He'd rather throw parties.

"It's really hard to get the feeling of what we're about by looking at an ad," he says. "When we do events like the one we just had, hopefully people will tell their friends they saw Diplo at this store called Commonwealth."

Pierce and Bynumb are out on the sidewalk, talking about the performance Quiambao is referring to -- a set from Diplo, the globe-trotting Philadelphia DJ-producer behind M.I.A.'s hit "Paper Planes." The event drew an overflow crowd in the hundreds, Pierce and Bynumb slinging drinks from behind a makeshift bar while store manager Roland Castro jumped on the turntables to DJ as fans waited for the headliner to arrive.

Bynumb, charismatic and garrulous, recounts his adventures as the evening's de facto bartender as if his memory has a fast-forward button: "It was crazy. . . . We went through like 20 bottles of liquor. . . . We'd grab up all the tip money and -- boom! -- run to the liquor store . . . come back with, like, six bottles . . . burn through those in, like, 15 minutes. . . . It was crazy. . . . Oh yeah, I know how to bartend. . . . I know how to make Kool-Aid, same thing."

Moments later, an older man shuffles past the Commonwealth storefront, peering in from the outside. He surveys the same room that was jammed with Diplo's revelers just a few nights earlier. Now, Commonwealth is practically empty, a lonely store with the stereo speakers still pumping.

He presses his nose to the window, his breath forming steamy Rorschach blots on the glass. Not a skateboarder or rap star entourage in sight, but that could all change at a moment's notice. With the burgeoning Commonwealth, everything is just a matter of time.