Fred Segal: Where Cool Is The Key

“It’s Malibu housewives gone wild”

Reeve T. Schley
Mirror staff writer

   Fred Segal in Santa Monica is an airy labyrinth of chic clothes, jewelry, accessories, furniture, food, and apothecary.
   While it runs the gamut of styles from hobo to ballroom, its prices are uniform – expensive.
   At Fifth Street and Broadway, the store has been in Santa Monica for 15 years, and is the offspring of Fred Segal on Melrose where celebrities and wannabes have found the latest threads for the last 30 years.
   Fittingly, Fred Segal Santa Monica is just beyond the orbit of Santa Monica Place and the Third Street Promenade, which feature the usual run-off-the-mill chain stores that are so ubiquitous in American malls, but close enough to attract adventurous shoppers.
   Its success, it seems, comes from maintaining its balance on that precarious line between enigmatic style and American consumerism. It does not advertise – except when holds a sale. The Fred Segal signs are unassuming, and its exterior architecture is more reminiscent of a Salvation Army center than a cutting edge fashion outpost.
   “It’s rock-and-roll chic. It’s more about the image of what it means to get something at Fred Segal. It is cool rather than beautiful and classy. Everyone wants to be cool in LA. Everyone wants to be a rock star and feel young,” said a stylist from the television show “Friends,” adding that she hasn’t ever dropped less than a grand there. “A 50-year-old movie producer goes in so he can get a pair of corduroys and look 25. In the movie business it is all about looking like you know what is going on,” she said.
   Unlike other retail operators, Fred Segal is primarily a landlord. He rents space to nearly 50 distinct and separately owned boutiques. The store on Melrose is 28,000 square feet, while the two stores in Santa Monica, which face each other across Fifth Street, measure a total of 58,000 square feet.
   Three-plus decades ago, Segal was working at a small store on Santa Monica Boulevard when he had the idea of making high-fashion jeans. He approached his boss who promptly told him to make them himself. So he did, selling $20 blue jeans in a market full of $2.39 jeans. When they hit, he proceeded to make velvet, corduroy, leather, silk and linen jeans.
   Moving on, he opened a small 350-square-foot store on Melrose and grossed $800,000 in his first year. That was 30 years ago, and he’s never looked back.
   In his stores today it’s possible to get an “omni-sensory” harmonic massage, eat a spinach Caesar salad with homemade croutons and pumpkin seeds, and walk out with the latest high-riding leather boots for $1,295.
   Clothes aren’t much cheaper: patched jeans go for $169; vintage jeans with a Rock and Republic tag go for $307; a polyester handbag is $540; and a small bottle of olive oil costs $22.50.
   “Fred Segal is Malibu housewives gone wild,” said Lori Freitag, outside of the Santa Monica store last week, noting that she lives in Mar Vista but makes a monthly pilgrimage to Fred’s.
   The store is, by no means, just for established designers. Young designers, like Jared Gold, who graduated from the Otis College of Art and Design while simultaneously working at Fred Segal, make and sell their own clothes. Another designer/store employee, Bianca Brananan, who designs skirts, was surprised to see Cameron Diaz wearing one at a local coffee shop.
   The store has a international mystique, drawing people from as far as New York for its annual September/October sale, where normally pricey merchandise sells for as much as 75 percent off. The bottom line, says Ron Robinson, a 36-year tenant of Fred Segal, is that the merchandise is like none other under one roof.
   “We have smart customers. Our customers are well-traveled, knowledgeable, and interested in unique and higher quality items. There is no other place where the selection satisfies all of their needs. That’s is what we bring to the market place,” Robinson said.
   Robinson owns four boutiques at Fred Segal Melrose: Life Size, a children’s store; S2, a men’s sportswear company; Apothia, a cosmetic and beauty store; and World Ave., a hair accessory and design store. Life Size and S2 are also in Santa Monica Fred Segal.
   Last Thursday, a group of people sat smoking cigarettes and drinking lattes on the patio of Fred Segal, when Santa Monica resident Meredith Henry came out of the store toting a few shopping bags. “It’s an eclectic combination of things,” she said, “Most things are ridiculously over-priced, but it is fun to look through what they have.”
   Even though the reins of the company have ostensibly been handed to his two children, Sharon and Michael, Segal, himself chooses the boutiques that are in his stores.
   According to Robinson, each boutique adds something to the mix that keeps customers coming back.
   “In retail terms, we bring in the kind of product that our customers would like. Ultimately, that affects the landlord side,” Robinson said. “They sought us out for a place in their Santa Monica store because of our success at Melrose, and our ability to provide the customers with what they want.”