LOS ANGELES—It's an old Hollywood joke: the highly successful actor accepts an award and ends with, “But what I really want to do is direct.”
In a retail real estate variation, privately held media company Sandow, which acquired the licensing rights to the legendary Los Angeles retail brand Fred Segal in 2012, really wants to be a developer. The company has partnered with Evolution Media Partners to build up to 10 Fred Segal lifestyle centers in the United States and overseas over the next five to seven years, says Women's Wear Daily.
The company has hired former David Yurman and Juicy Couture CEO Paul Blum to lead the charge, which “will blend shopping with innovative art, culture and entertainment experiences,” says the company's announcement. The projects should be 10,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet, with the first expected to open later this year.
Sandow does not own the first two Fred Segal boutiques, in Santa Monica and West Hollywood, but which can be considered mini-lifestyle centers in themselves, offering individual options such as in-store boutiques and even restaurants.
However it already has expanded the brand, known since the 1960s as a luxury and pioneering fashion destination (it was among the first to carry designer jeans, for example), to a shop at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport, and will open seven branded experiences including menswear, women's apparel, accessories and shoes at the SLS Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas in August. It will be the first time a single brand occupies all of the retail space in a hotel, the company says.
It makes sense that Sandow would want to expand this concept around the country. But expanding a retail center, even one as departmentalized as Segal, isn't easy. Not every actor turned director is Clint Eastwood.
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