Long time coming? Maybe.
Vancouver retailer Aritzia’s surprise purchase Thursday of Los Angeles boutique Fred Segal’s intellectual property may have been years in the making. After more than a decade being passed from one licensing firm to another, the shuttered Fred Segal may see new life and newfound success under its new parent company.
News of the acquisition was first reported by WWD, which indicated Aritzia’s first move is to reopen the Los Angeles retailer’s iconic Melrose Avenue location after inking a lease on the property.
Aritzia CEO Jennifer Wong called Fred Segal a “cultural touchstone” for Los Angeles, adding “we are honored to steward and evolve” the brand.
The lease and revival of Melrose, at least initially, may make sense for those familiar with the market.
Some may recall the legal dispute over signage at the property back in 2016 when the compound at 8100 Melrose Avenue sold for $43 million to CormackHill, according to the deed.
CormackHill is owned by Aritzia founder and former CEO Brian Hill and Herschel Supply Co. founders Lyndon and Jamie Cormack.
A legal battle over whether CormackHill could keep the Fred Segal sign up ensued, while tenants such as Ron Robinson and eventually Ron Herman slowly left the complex.
The same year of the building’s purchase, Aritzia opened a pop-up at the Melrose location, which eventually became a permanent fixture.
Fresh Start?
Fred Segal’s new parent may leave some wondering if this latest deal will stick.
In 2012, the company was licensed to Sandow Media, which had ambitious plans to grow the retailer that was known for its shop-in-shop concepts and pulse on local up-and-coming brands.
The idea under Sandow was to turn the Los Angeles retailer into a global business.
Evolution Media Partners was brought on as an equity investor in 2014 and former Juicy Couture and David Yurman CEO Paul Blum was tapped to lead Fred Segal’s growth.
Part of those plans included moving Fred Segal from the Melrose Avenue location to Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, where the retailer took on a mega, 21,000-square-foot store in 2017. At the time, Blum said he thought the retailer could support as many as 10 openings annually of the lifestyle concept for which Sunset Boulevard was to serve as a blueprint.
Those plans never came to fruition, and in 2019, Fred Segal was shuttled to brand licensing firm Global Icons.
The playbook for Global Icons sounded the same: grow the store count and brand.
Global Icons did that with the rapid openings of stores at The Shops at Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City, Santa Monica, Marin, Malibu and Resorts World Las Vegas.
There was also an assortment of Fred Segal-branded apparel.
The plans began crumbling when some of those same stores began closing less than a year after opening, including Marin and Santa Monica. Studio City closed a few months later in the summer of 2024. The final moves were the shuttering of the website, Malibu and Sunset Boulevard stores.
“Everything just fell apart [after Covid], and then I sort of had to become a retailer, which is not what I planned to do,” Global Icons CEO Jeff Lotman told the Los Angeles Times in 2024. “I knew nothing about retail.”
Growing Footprint
For Aritzia, the U.S. accounted for nearly 60 percent of it’s a little over $1 billion in third-quarter revenue. That $621.1 million generated Stateside represented a 54 percent jump from what the region did a year earlier.
Clearly, the company wants to continue growing awareness of its brand as it opens new stores and sees comparable sales growth.
To that point, while Thursday’s big news for the fashion retailer was Fred Segal, it was also the same day Aritzia opened its store at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance.
That brings the company’s store count in California to 14 as Del Amo joins locations at Americana at Brand in Glendale, Los Cerritos Center, Westfield Century City, South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa and The Grove in Los Angeles.
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