Valley finally comes of age for upscale retail circuit: opening of remodeled Topanga illustrates change.

It is the night of the opening benefit gala for the redesigned Nordstrom at Westfield Topanga, and the 1,600 guests have descended on the new store, scooping up $300 pairs of shoes, $1,500 handbags and designer labels with mid-four digit price tags.

A funny thing has happened here in Canoga Park some 25 years after the first Valley girl rode into popular culture. There is nary a pastel in sight, and the redesigned Nordstrom store, at 200,000 square feet, is one of the biggest the chain has to offer, filled with designer labels that even Nordstrom has not carried before in any of its stores.

Elsewhere in the newly remodeled mall too there are the kinds of brand names and products that until now have only been available on the other side of the hill.

A population increase, rising affluence and a geography that makes it harder than ever to travel to the Westside to shop has remade the Valley's demographics, creating a demand for goods of all kinds, but especially luxury brands hardly imagined a decade ago.

"We've been seeing this change coming for the last 10 years and that's why we invested so heavily in the Valley," said Peter Lowy, CEO of the Westfield Group. The company's research shows that the population has increased 13 percent since 1994 and average household income has risen about 40 percent to $94,000.

Westfield bought the Topanga center weeks after the Northridge earthquake in 1994 for $154 million, and when the current expansion is complete, the Australian shopping center owner and operator with assets of more than $42 billion will have spent another $350 million to expand and renovate it, an expense that will likely do more than boost revenues for the company. With it, Westfield will likely have cornered the market for luxury goods in the Valley.

"The whole premise of the company as an operating company is to buy malls and spend capital and penetrate the market to a greater extent than it did before," said Lowy. "...By having the only Neimans and this Nordstrom we expand the market with a much broader reach than it had."