His laid-back style and namesake jeans made him a touchstone of 1960s fashion, drawing celebrities and tourists alike to his stores.
Fred Segal, whose clothing boutiques became an emblem of Los Angeles cool by selling form-fitting jeans and chambray shirts to the likes of Bob Dylan, Farah Fawcett and the Beatles, died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Thursday. He was 87. The cause was complications of a stroke, according to a spokeswoman for the family. Mr. Segal became one of the West Coast’s best-known designers and retailers in the 1960s and helped shape the image of Southern California fashion as breezy, sexy and relaxed. His namesake ivy-covered store became a hangout for fashionistas, Hollywood actors and big-name artists and musicians. For tourists, it often figured into sightseeing itineraries right alongside Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the Hollywood sign. Mr. Segal opened his first store in 1960, a 700-square-foot space on Santa Monica Boulevard that sold denim jeans, chambray shirts and pants, velvets and flannels, according to the company’s website. In 1961, he and Ron Herman, his nephew, opened a shop half as large on Melrose Avenue that carried only jeans, which they sold for $19.95 a pair — a price that was practically unheard-of at the time, when men still wore suits and denim pants typically sold for $3 a pair. “My concept was that people wanted to be comfortable, casual and sexy, so I thought it would work and obviously it did work,” Mr. Segal said in an interview with Haute Living magazine in 2012.
