> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Leaving the beige behind for brighter days - URL: https://www.smdp.com/leaving-the-beige-behind-for-brighter-days/ - Published: 2006-03-20T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T17:22:20.000Z - Author: Kevin Herrera - Tags: Business, Montana, #archive-import, Homeless *stage-four breast cancer and Melanoma.* MONTANA AVE. — Walking into Marcia Bloom’s boutique clothing store here is like entering a dream world where imaginations are allowed to run wild and the only requirement for admittance is a desire to be entertained. Her husband, Sam Kass, a playwright and “Seinfeld” alum, compares it to “Alice and Wonderland,” where “people can come inside and take a step out of reality, leaving all of their worries behind them and really take time to smell the roses.” Bloom, 47, the daughter of a physicist and nuerosurgeon, says her work is a rebellion against being raised “in a beige world.” It’s funky, eclectic and above all else, fun — just like her. While moving around the store, Bloom can often be seen laughing loudly while chatting with customers or sewing a few socks to the bottom of a skirt, one of her more zany creations. She seems so carefree and content, it’s easy to forget Bloom has been living with Where others have died in seven months from the same illness, Bloom has managed to survive for seven years. No one knows exactly why. Perhaps it is the chemotherapy sessions she receives or the new drugs that seem to come on the market just when Bloom feels nothing more can be done. Something is keeping Bloom alive. Bloom and her family seem to think it has something to do with her boutique, Marcia Bloom Designs. Since it opened, Bloom has never looked back, even when it came to signing a five-year lease. “It makes me feel so good to do this,” she said last week from behind her workstation at the bou-tique, surrounded by fabrics of all colors and textures. “Sometimes life is dark, but then when I come here it’s just pure joy. I’m so happy to be alive, so happy to go to work and so happy people support my work. I mean, my husband works here. Who would think a writer would want to work in a women’s clothing store?” While it remains quite possible Bloom could take a turn for the worse, she said in an interview last week that she is looking towards to future, not giving in to depression or self pity. She hopes that by sharing her story, she may be able to inspire others who feel they have nothing to live for now that they have cancer. When did you find out you had breast cancer? “I have been stage four for about seven years now, which is really unusual, because when you’re stage four many don’t last a year, let alone seven. I have an incredible doctor … The day I opened the store I was diagnosed with Melanoma on top of breast cancer. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was with two types of cancer and we had just opened this new store, and then it entered my lungs and is inoperable. I still go to chemo all the time. I’m not in remission, but I’m not getting worse. Every once in a while I’ll feel real lousy, but I can control it with drugs. It’s funny, I have all these fabrics and jewelry and ribbons that I’ve been saving, but when you get diagnosed, I just started digging through it all and using all of my best stuff, which makes it so great. I’m using things I’ve saved for years. I’m getting these incredible fabrics that I’ve hoarded. On chemo day I get a little crabby. We have to go through all my stuff and determine who I’m going to give them to if I die. When I go to chemo you know I don’t know what the doctor is going to say so I start getting rid of all my stuff. Then when I leave, I just go out and buy a bunch again … I didn’t want to talk about my diagnosis for a while because I don’t like to talk about cancer. I don’t want people to look at me differently because I have cancer, but my doctor said you sort of owe it to people to show there is this other life you can live. I’m so energized by all the people and realize I’m so lucky to be able to go to work, and walk to work, you know, it’s amazing.” How were you diagnosed? “One of our customers wanted me to go on the Revlon Walk, and I didn’t want to go, so she said if I didn’t, I had to promise to go and get a mammogram. I did and that’s how I found out. I was 39 and I had no idea. It was so advanced. That was what’s amazing, that it was so advanced and I didn’t even know it. Then they told me I was going to need a stem cell transplant and I was like ‘Oh my God.’ I didn’t know much about it.” How do you pay for all the treatments and the drugs? “Not counting my scans or any of my doctor visits, I’m paying $7,000 every three weeks, and that’s just for one medication. There’s another $3,000 or so a month for drugs that are mail-ordered. The scans are $5,000 a pop. We talk about it all the time. It’s like how much are you worth? Like I don’t want all my money to go to this and then my kids have none. That’s the horrible decision people have to make every day. People come in and they can’t decide between this dress or that. They have no idea what a life or death decision is all about.” How did you get into the clothing business? “I started off by making 40 dresses for 40 nuns … That was about 25 years ago. I had just graduated from the (Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City) and I was waitressing at a bar. I made everyone there these western shirts because the restaurant had this bluegrass theme. Someone knew the nuns — I guess they went to their parish in Brooklyn — and told me they needed dresses. That was my second job and I’ve been doing it ever since.” Have you always been interested in fashion? “Yes, but I was never really good at it. When I graduated I didn’t know how to sew so I had to fake it. I learned it really fast. I received an art history degree from the university of Boulder in Colorado, but I probably did more skiing than I did learning about art history. But it did help my eye. When I graduated I didn’t really have many options besides becoming a waitress so that’s what I did, not knowing it would lead to a career in fashion really. I started my wholesale business shortly after doing those dresses for the nuns and sold to 15 stores around the city. I’m still selling to three of those stores 25 years later. I’m making dresses for the children of little kids I made clothes for 20 years ago. It’s been wonderful.” What attracted you to fashion? “I was always real quirky and my parents were scientists, so I guess there was a little rebellion along the way. Also, I think their genes, something in there collided. My mother was a physicist and my father a nuerosurgeon, so something weird must have happened. I don’t know what. My father apologizes though. He says, ‘If I only knew what it was like to be a left-brain child in a right-brain house we would have treated you so much better.’ My house was all beige. My mother only wore beige. I grew up in a beige world and then I just had to break out.” What would you say your style is? Funky eclectic? “Well, those are words we always use. I guess its just clothes that make you happy, clothes that make you smile. People come in here and they laugh and laugh and laugh. Even when they hate it, they laugh. It’s just feel-good. I guess that explains the sock thing. Socks are comfortable. They make people feel good, even if they never wear it, just having it hanging up just makes them feel better. Such a variety of people come through here.” Where do your ideas come from? “Usually, they come to me in the middle of the night. I don’t watch a lot of TV. I know where it comes from. I’m addicted to conservative talk radio. I’m not a conservative, but I listen to Rush Limbaugh. I get so angry that I make these things that are so wild just to counteract the way I feel. And so if it’s Bill O’Reilly, I’m going to be up all night.” What kind of comments do you get from people passing by? In the last hour, there have been a wide range of people, all with a strong reaction to your creations. “We hear it all. There are some who yell at us, you know, ‘Who would wear that?’ I yell back. Yesterday, this old guy came by and said ‘This is stupid.’ So I shot back, ‘It’s not stupid!’ He yelled back, ‘It’s stupid.’ There’s a homeless woman who yells at me too. She walks by almost every day and stops. The other day she said ‘Socks, socks, bulls--t.’ I get a lot of foreign people — like yesterday, from Venezuela — and they just love the stuff. Anyone from any other country loves the stuff. They get it. Men, a lot of men love my stuff. They come in to buy for their wives or girlfriends. It’s really an acquired taste. We have people who are big fans and own like 20 skirts.” Your husband mentioned your store has become more like a community center. What are some of the things you do here? “Well, sometimes I give sewing lessons to kids. One girl brings her dog. The dog sits in the chair and watches us sew. Actually, the dog ran away and the first place they called was here … We also hold poetry readings, little concerts … We’ve become a dating service too, of sorts. We fixed up one couple who ended up dating for a year and a half.” How do you like working on Montana? “It’s great. I can walk to work. I think it’s been wonderful. I love the neighborhood. We have a lot of friends who live around here so they stop by and bring me coffee from Pete’s. People who aren’t my friends bring me stuff. I had one customer who brought me Kentucky Fried Chicken, which I had never had. I can’t believe I had never eaten it before. I’m from upstate New York so I don’t even know if we have it. We didn’t have anything. People bring me food all the time, I’ve been invited to bar mitzvah. I’ve been invited to weddings and then I go skiing with people. I’ve become really good friends with so many people. My son tore a ligament in his ankle so when I called (my husband) a women was standing in the store and overhead. It just so happens that her brother is the ankle man for the Lakers and she was standing right there. Next thing you know (my son) gets to go to the ankle guy for the Lakers that minute. He didn’t even need an appointment. So we get medical advice, cooking advice — it’s the funniest thing. We always end up socializing.” Why live in Santa Monica? “What I love is just the neighborliness and the fact that you can walk to just about anything. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law live right next door to us, so we have family here, friends. We have just really grown to love it here. The schools are great, there’s the beach. It has it all.” What is your advice to other women who are finding it hard to cope? “You have to stay active every day, even on those days when you don’t even want to get out of bed. So you throw up on the sidewalk. You get used to it. It’s better to throw up outside than to throw up inside and feel sorry for yourself. You are lucky enough to have those days that someone didn’t get. Make use of them. Just appreciate every day you have. I don’t want to preach, but you have to enjoy everything you have … Volunteer to work in a shelter or go to an old folks home. There is so much that you can feel lucky that you’re able to do and it sort of takes your mind away from the disease.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 20, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/032006.pdf?ref=smdp.com)