Glenn Pushelberg And George Yabu On Biker Style And Wild West Fashion

Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu know a thing or two about design. The interior design duo are the force behind the Yabu Pushelberg design firm, which is no stranger to the fashion world.

Pushelberg and Yabu have been working together for 30 years, and have revamped Bergdorf Goodman’s flagship in New York, worked alongside Carolina Herrera, and designed salons for Louis Vuitton. They have worked on creating table wear with Italian brand Pampaloni, on designing the New York Edition Hotel, not to mention a pop-up store for Goop and a lounge in Las Vegas for Bruno Mars called Pinky Ring.

Pushelberg and Yabu recently completed the design for two properties in downtown Los Angeles, the AC Hotel DTLA and the Moxy Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, which share the same building. The design approach couldn’t have had better timing—it ties into our obsession with Wild West fashion, which is currently all the rage.

From ottomans inspired by motorcycle jackets to desert friendly fare, Pushelberg and Yabu have turned to desert culture and the wild west as inspiration for the hotels. “It has a rawness to it,” said Pushelberg. “Good art is never literal, it’s always a feeling, a mood that comes from soothing else.”

Wild West fashion is back, for many reasons. Look at Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album, Pharell’s Americana Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2024 collection, which debuted earlier this year, and the return of cowboy boots and hats. “It’s just a total nod to creativity,” said Yabu.

It led them to thinking about their youth and the movie Easy Rider with Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda. The film came out in 1969 and set the tone for the 1970s bad boy—motorbike, Ray Ban sunglasses, leather jackets. “We started to riff on the desert and the grittiness of motorcycle guys and gals,” said Pushelberg. “We wanted to design something that felt it belonged in LA, downtown LA—mashed up and perfectly imperfect.”

The design duo wanted to riff on what they felt downtown LA always represented. “There’s a moodiness to these hotels, and there’s unconventional art that frames the views of the landscape and sky and the rest of the city,” said Pushelberg.

The hotels tap into this western chic inspiration. “We hit on the metaphor of Easy Rider ’cause it kind of epitomized how we felt about it,” said Yabu. “Historically speaking, America is the wild, Wild West of opportunity. Everything and that it is, now, and what’s happening on a micro level even in a community in downtown LA, has a Wild West feel to it.

“These hotels are kind of in balance with each other,” said Pushelberg. “One is a little bit edgier—the Moxy—and one is a little bit less edgy—the AC Hotel-but they both have slightly different purposes. They each have their own personality to them.”

Pushelberg looks back on the 1980s, when he and Yabu were young, starting out in Toronto, after graduating from Ryerson University in Toronto (now called Toronto Metropolitan University). Roughly 30 years ago, they would visit downtown LA “when it was desolate and derelict, but it had a free zone to it,” he said.

He compares the lobby of the AC Hotel to being at a fashion show. “The lobby is really more like a promenade,” he said. “You watch people, and you’re seen in this place. There’s this social interaction or the ability to choose if I want to be part of the party or look at the party.

The hotel is filled with contemporary art, wall sculptures made of wood and abstract paintings which give it a moody vibe. AC Hotels were a Spanish brand before it was bought by Marriott International in 2011. “It was a very kind of tailored brand, and we wanted to give it some edge to it because downtown LA deserves that,” said Yabu.

Their inspiration for this hotel, which is located from Crypto.com, LA Live and the Los Angeles Convention Center, and features 12 eclectic dining and entertaining concepts, including Level 8 by Houston Hospitality, was asking themselves this question: ‘what would it feel like to be an artist living in downtown LA?’

“We each have an aspirational dream of an alternative life that we that I’ve got wedged into,” said Pushelberg.

“It feels like an artist’s loft in LA. The scale is high, it is filled with sculptures, and it has a loft-like feel. Everything is a manifestation of mood and emotion. I think for us, that’s what makes up a successful place.”

As Yabu explains: “There’s always this creative force behind being pioneers in different neighborhoods, as challenging a neighborhood as downtown LA was. And look at it now; the momentum of the Broad Museum and all these galleries collectively building it up. It’s a place that we wanted to be a part of and feel the guests would be a part of that.”