A Spree at Fred Segal

Fred Segal’s cult shopping mecca on Broadway, Santa Monica, has been an essential pit stop for LA fashion consumers since it opened in 1985. Cameron Diaz is reportedly a fan, as is Jennifer Aniston (a blow dry in the salon is around $85, for the record). If that’s not enough to assure Fred Segal’s pop-cultural potency, the shop was name-checked in Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless. Fronted with an unmistakable sign featuring Segal’s cartoon-like red, white and blue logo (neatly branding shopping as part-and-parcel of the American dream), the store is unique not only in the way it operates—as stores within the store, each independently operated—but in the fact that it remains a family-run business in which every member has an imprint. Still at the helm, Fred Segal himself is a modern retail guru and was one of the first to promote the idea of high-fashion denim in the late 50s. His legacy, philosophy and formidable work ethic has been passed down to his daughters—Sharon, Nina and Annie––who have worked in the stores from the age of 13, and have gone on to create their own respective lines and in-shop boutiques. Sharon does tees and owns two boutiques in the store, Nina runs the Fred Segal bead emporium, and Annie is now collaborating with her father on their first exclusive line, Fred Segal Originals (which will be sold from a new mini store), which debuts this fall. “Working with family, there's an ease of communication and an openness that you don't have anywhere else,” says Sharon. Today, the three sisters show us some popular items in store, accompanied by photographer Misha Gravenor.