Fred Segal Dies: Los Angeles Retail Icon Was 87

A pioneer of the store-in-shop thought, his ivy-covered retail store on Melrose turned a position where by celebs and fashionistas combined and mingled.

Fred Segal, the retail big who aided form the vogue and cultural landscape in Los Angeles by launching new designers and delivering threads for A-listing clientele like The Beatles, Diana Ross, The Jackson 5 and Angelina Jolie, has died. He was 87.

Segal died Thursday of troubles from a stroke at Providence Saint John’s Well being Centre in Santa Monica, a publicist announced.

He experienced suffered a stroke on Feb. 5, 2014, something he declared himself on a holiday break card despatched at year’s close to mates and relatives with a concept that “everyday living as we realized it would by no means be the similar.” But the enigmatic Segal confirmed off his persona and will to dwell by together with a picture of himself sporting a hat, smoking cigarettes a cigarette and increasing a center finger with the slogan, “Stroke this.”

At the time, daughter Annie Segal instructed The Hollywood Reporter that “medical professionals warned us there was a trim probability of survival, so we had been organized for the worst. It truly is a wonder that he’s not only alive, but living effectively less than the circumstances.”

Segal opened his to start with eponymous shop, a designer denim emporium, in 1961 on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. According to the brand’s site, it was a modest 350-square-foot place with 85 p.c of inventory getting “his namesake denim jeans along with shirts and pants in chambrays, velvets and flannels.”

He later moved the procedure to the site it is ideal recognized for, at Melrose Avenue and Crescent Heights Boulevard, and it drew crowds and caused traffic jams as shoppers descended to acquire denim that far exceeded regular charges for that time. (Segal offered jeans for $19.95 when other outlets had been supplying kinds for $3.)

Segal proved he had a flair for emerging designers, but he also formed a retail expertise that would transform the business. He pioneered the then-novel store-in-shop idea and experiential retail that launched up-and-coming labels synonymous with SoCal fashion (assume Juicy Couture, Difficult Candy Cosmetics and Earl Jeans).

According to the organization, early customers incorporated The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Ross and The Jackson 5, and Farrah Fawcett was photographed on a skateboard in Segal’s denims for an advertisement marketing campaign.

Segal, who created an ambiance where artists, musicians and craze-obsessed fashionistas could mingle under the very same roof, credited portion of his success to preserving a diploma of honesty with his buyers.

“I uncovered at a incredibly young age that the space of no levels of competition is in integrity,” he claimed. “So if individuals are totally honest with on their own and then they are sincere with all people all-around them, there is not any competitors in that.

“For illustration, when I was promoting in my retailer to my shoppers and they arrived in wanting to purchase this or that, if they place an outfit on and they asked me for my assistance, component of the time I would say, ‘Take that off, do not even invest in that, that would be absurd, you will not even look fantastic in that.’ Which is seriously deep honesty. You do not find that in enterprise, you know?”

The retailer’s legendary ivy-coated location in West Hollywood became a movie star hotspot in excess of the years and was featured prominently in the 1995 classic teenager comedy Clueless.

“Lucy! Where’s my white collarless shirt from Fred Segal?” Alicia Silverstone’s Cher says in the Amy Heckerling-directed film. A handful of many years later, Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods declares in Legally Blonde (2001), “And final week, I observed Cameron Diaz at Fred Segal, and I talked her out of buying this really heinous angora sweater.”

Jokes apart, it was not unheard of to see Diaz or other A-list stars like Jennifer Aniston perusing the outlets at Fred Segal or dining at its buzzy on-site cafe that was, for lots of a long time, an field electrical power lunch and dinner spot.

Segal expanded his model to many outposts as his California interesting empire grew with addresses in Santa Monica, and he stuffed the areas with household associates. His son, Michael, would finally turn out to be CEO and his daughters Annie and Sharon at the time managed their own outlets inside of the retail store.

In 2012, New York-based media corporation Sandow acquired international licensing legal rights to the Fred Segal identify. The company is now owned by World Icons, which obtained the brand in 2019.

Per the firm’s web page, there are now places on Sunset Boulevard in Malibu at LAX in Bern, Germany and in Taipei, and reports this week mentioned that added spots are prepared for Las Vegas. Nevertheless, it has not been immune to the latest slide in the retail business enterprise as its Santa Monica place shuttered and the Melrose outpost is no extended the hotspot it at the time was.

Segal “was an innovator, a forward thinker, a rule-breaker, a mentor to so lots of, such a lover of lifestyle and a humanitarian,” his family members claimed in a assertion. “Anybody who understood him felt his highly effective energy. He worked his whole existence to have self-like and to instruct all of us to like one particular one more. To the really end, he motivated us to never give up. He will be endlessly cherished and celebrated.”

Survivors contain his spouse, Tina 5 youngsters, 10 grandchildren, two excellent-grandchildren, two stepchildren and a stage-grandson.

Donations in his identify can be designed to the Segal Household-United Globe Basis at 10960 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1100 Los Angeles, CA 90024.