Slouching Toward SEQUINS.

Chances are, if you buy a Libertine coat with a 19th-century-ish horse show ribbon stitched to the collar, or a silk-printed poem slicked across the back, Hartig himself sewed the ribbon or selected the verse. Soon the local boutiques Maxfield and Ron Herman were selling the shirts for $500, buying them out of pillowcases hauled around by the designer, Johnson Hartig. DEPARTMENTS: STYLE SPY Twenty-one years ago, in a three-bedroom apartment in L.A.'s not-yet-trendy Koreatown, an aspiring actor began decorating shirts he had snagged on the cheap. [Extracted from the article]