On the day after Christmas, a familiar mother-daughter spat was playing out at a Kitson boutique on South Robertson Boulevard.

“You can walk outside if you want,” said the teenage girl, flipping through a stack of jeans. Mom: “I don’t really want to go to any stores.” Girl: “But it’s like, 90 percent off!”

She wasn’t exaggerating by much. As Kitson, the 16-year-old store whose baby-blue bags once proliferated on famous forearms, prepares to shut down by the end of January, its 17 locations around the country are clearing house, slashing prices and provoking a queasy nostalgia for the good old days. That is, the early aughts, when paparazzi thronged the chain’s outposts to catch Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and their ilk post- or even midshopping spree, the resultant photographs evoking the full flush of hedonism before the financial crisis.

More than a place to pick up Juicy Couture tracksuits and Ugg boots, Kitson provided a backdrop for celebrity melodrama: Ms. Spears trying on hats at 2 a.m. (the store opened especially for her). Ms. Hilton shopping with girlfriends, oblivious to her dog urinating on a display of studded ballet flats. Kim Kardashian, before she went West, browsing the boutique, fresh-faced in an empire-waist maxidress.

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Fond of T-shirts emblazoned with silly wordage (“J’adore pizza”), Kitson sometimes chronicled the goings on of Hollywood itself, hawking shirts that read “Team Jolie” and “Team Pitt” when Brangelina became a thing. Some will miss this voice.

“I’m so upset,” said Jodi Polen, a reiki healer from Chicago who, over the last 10 years, has made a point of shopping at Kitson during trips to Los Angeles to visit her mother. “I just took a picture outside; like, ‘Ahh!’” she said, screaming and holding her hands above her head. “They have the best fun stuff and cool clothes, and it’s a place to see people and be seen. It’s almost like what L.A. means to me is Kitson. How can you come here and not have Kitson?”

Despite its association with the region’s glitziest set, Kitson ran into trouble. Early last year, the store’s founder, Fraser Ross, was sued by Hudson Group, the company that operates Kitson’s stores at the Los Angeles International Airport. Among its complaints: Mr. Ross allegedly showing up unannounced and berating employees. (The airport stores later closed.) In June, Spencer Spirit Holdings Inc., the owner of Spencer’s novelty gift stores (staple items include lava lamps and edible underwear), agreed to acquire Kitson to help the store avoid bankruptcy.

Nevertheless, in December Kitson announced that it would go out of business, and while its sell-by date is Jan. 31, an employee at the original boutique on Robertson Boulevard predicted that the stores may shut sooner. “I mean, we don’t have that much left,” she said, motioning to a table of dish towels bearing quips like, “Drunk is when you feel sophisticated but can’t pronounce the word!”

A public relations representative for the store declined to comment on its closing or to make Mr. Ross available for comment.

Merchandise at the Kitson boutiques along Robertson (there are four) had a crumpled-up, gently used feel, like a polyester bathrobe, cinched and hanging backward, reading, weakly, “I woke up like this.” Shelves once stacked with shoes bore only a few wayward stilettos. There were wan displays of coffee-table books and other home curiosities, like a 2016 calendar entitled “Nice Jewish Guys.” At the original Robertson store, a woman in yoga pants picked up and quickly put back down a greeting card that read, “I’m the Kylie you’re the Kendall.”

At the end of the first week in January, prices on all apparel had been reduced by 50 to 70 percent, but even with the discount, many items reached well into the triple digits, like a zipper-adorned leather pencil skirt by Rachel Zoe (original price: $795). Bright yellow “all sales final” signs stripped away any residue of luxury. (Would Ms. Kardashian deign to dig through the piles of cashmere here?)

“It’s so sad,” Ms. Polen said. “I love to come in here because there’s nothing else like it.”

Even as shoppers expressed puzzlement at the chain’s closing, there were signs that its brand awareness was no longer at its peak.

“I had never heard of it before,” said Charlene Gupit, a student. “I just saw, ‘Sale! Sale!’ I’m just wondering, why are they actually closing? I really like their stuff now that I’ve come here for the first time.”

Tara Radan, also a student, ambled through the original Robertson boutique with her twin sister and an armful of merchandise. “They still have a lot of stock, and I don’t know why they’re shutting down,” she said. “It’s really sad. I don’t know if they’re going bankrupt or what’s happening, but I thought they were really popular.”

Now, though, the atmosphere was more Crazy Eddie than Fred Segal, the rival boutique on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.

“I got a lotion in the Newport Beach location for free because it was the last tester that they had,” Ms. Radan said. “I was pretty stoked that they gave it to me.”

Aly Green and Stephanie Ganan, local residents, blamed tourists for driving true Angelenos away. “And tourists, really, how much are they buying?” Ms. Green asked.

Ms. Ganan said, “They’re coming to, like, try to see celebrities.”

“… that don’t even come here anymore!” Ms. Green added.

But Ms. Polen was keeping her eyes on the prize. Among the items she bought: five T-shirts, 12 long-sleeve shirts, seven pairs of sweatpants, nine sweatshirts, a plaid button-down shirt, two pairs of sunglasses, a bracelet and a winter hat.

“I almost got a purse, perfume and a leather jacket, but I had to take some things out of my basket or I would’ve bought the whole store!” she wrote in an email. “Lol!”

Last Sunday, at another Kitson on Melrose, Noah Diamond, a music producer and photographer, reflected on the celebrities who used to crowd this space and their conspicuous absence now. “I mean, what does that show?” he said. “That shows that celebrities are higher up now. They go straight to designers.”

Or they shop online, or their assistants do their shopping for them. The glass storefronts and open layouts that once made Kitson appealing now ward off the most famous of potential clientele. Why rely on squirrelly paparazzi to capture your shopping spree when you can do it yourself, with better filters, on Instagram?

Mr. Diamond regarded the navy blue leather Scotch and Soda jacket on the hanger next to him. “It’s crazy,” he said. “No one’s going to buy this. This is almost $600. Who would buy that here?”

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