Iconic Californian fashion store Fred Segal has closed its two remaining stores in Los Angeles.
Founded in 1961, the store became a fixture of the city’s fashion scene and a symbol of laidback LA style.
The store was a favorite of celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Rihanna and Paris Hilton, and even became a pop culture reference point in films such as Legally Blonde and TV shows Beverly Hills: 90210 and Dawson’s Creek.
In the 1995 cult hit movie Clueless, Alicia Silverstone‘s Cher famously asks her housekeeper to help her find her ‘white collarless shirt from Fred Segal’ because it’s her ‘most capable looking outfit.’
The company, which once had nine locations in California, shuttered its remaining West Hollywood and Malibu stores this week.
Iconic Californian fashion store Fred Segal has closed its two remaining stores in Los Angeles
Founded in 1961, the store became a fixture of the Los Angeles fashion scene (Pictured: Inside a Santa Monica location in 2008)
Owner Jeff Lotman, who bought the company in 2019, said Fred Segal was not able to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on sales.
Before the pandemic hit, the company had pending deals to open stores in Canada, Dubai and Japan, he told The Los Angeles Times.
Lotman, who is CEO of brand licensing company Global Icons, had hoped to open 20 new shops in cities across the US.
‘Sixty years the company’s been around, and it’s a shame that it’s finally coming to a close,’ Lotman said.
He said that one of the main problems was that Fred Segal did not have enough self-branded products and relied too heavily on hundreds of outside brands.
‘That’s really what we needed to develop to make this thing work,’ he told the outlet. ‘Retail is hard and being a multi-brand retailer is even harder.’
While all the fashion retail locations and online store have closed, a Fred Segal home furnishings store will stay open in Culver City.
The Segal family own the Fred Segal trademark, so any decision about opening more stores in the future would be up to them, said Lotman.
Larry Russ, the family’s attorney, said this is not the end of the road for the brand, but could not share more information with the LA Times.
‘We are going to be looking for a new operator to open up more stores in the future,’ he said.
Lotman told DailyMail.com: ‘The shift to online shopping, economic uncertainties, and decreased foot traffic have made it difficult to maintain physical store operations.
‘Hopefully someone one day may pick it back up and get it to go, it is truly one of the greatest fashion brands out there.’
In the 1995 cult hit movie Clueless, Alicia Silverstone’s Cher famously asks her housekeeper to help her find her ‘white collarless shirt from Fred Segal’
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky pictured outside the West Hollywood store in 2022
The store was a favorite of Hollywood celebrities (Pictured: Florence Pugh in January 2024 and Denise Richards and Aaron Phypers in 2022
The store was a celebrity favorite and a symbol of California cool (Pictured: Pete Davidson and Machine Gun Kelly shopping in May)
It comes as retailers across the country are suffering from a pandemic hungover and the pressure of higher running costs.
Retailers of all sizes are closing their doors, with even big names being forced to shutter stores.
Major department store Macy’s, for example, announced earlier this year that it would close a third of its stores by 2026, including 50 this year alone.
The stratospheric rise of online rivals and the demise of America’s suburban malls and downtown districts are some of the factors which experts claim have contributed to the decline of the company.
Others blame a disappearing middle class, an unsuccessful digital transformation, or a failure to appeal to a younger generation of consumers.
Fellow department stores Neiman Marcus and JCPenney have both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and Sears now has only a dozen stores across the country – after boasting over 4,000 stores as recently as 2012.
