Fred Segal Home Opens First Showroom in Los Angeles
● The space, located at the remodeled HD Buttercup Design Center, highlights furniture and interior concepts with a slightly unorthodox view.
Fred Segal,
the pioneering Los Angeles fashion retailer who introduced several brands to the market that became synonymous with SoCal style, died in 2021. But his stores and brand live on.
And now there is a new chapter: Fred Segal Home has unveiled its first immersive showroom at the renovated HD Buttercup Design Center in Culver City, Calif.
With 4,500 square feet of bright space, the showroom features stylish luxury furniture, lighting and decor representing more than 20 high-end brands.
A licensee of the Fred Segal brand,
Fred Segal Home is an idea that has been in the works for years, but partners
Keith Granet, a design industry veteran, and Blair Carlton, whose background is in photography and the entertainment industry, decided it was time to get the project off the ground.
They were told about an available space at HD Buttercup, and the timing was right. “This is the first brick-and-mortar location for Fred Segal Home,” said Granet, who for years has worked as a licensing agent and management consultant to interior designers and the design industry. “The idea is to have a space for artists who really want to launch their brands that aren't normally found in the mainstream.”
Jeff Lotman, owner and chief executive officer of Fred Segal, liked the idea when he heard about it. “We're thrilled to continue to expand upon Fred Segal's legacy of creating a destination for design and discovery. The Fred Segal Home store within the iconic HD Buttercup Design Center will do just that… showcasing new and exclusive home furnishings, decor and more,” Lotman said.
The showroom's artists, accessories and furniture brands have a common thread of being a bit unorthodox and avantgarde. Each collection is shown in its own vignette area.
For example, there are luxury custommade game tables designed by Milanbased Impatia. The brand manufactures ping-pong tables with glass tops. They also make glass-topped foosball tables with high-end wooden frames. At the Opame Collective section, the furniture, rugs and home decor have an exotic feel.
In another section are contemporary lighting fixtures created by Artemide, a 64-year-old Italian company that makes table lamps, floor lamps, hanging lamps, wall sconces and other lighting styles out of fine glass fashioned by designers and architects. One of the more familiar pieces is a Tizio classic task lamp designed in 1972 by Richard Sapper for Artemide.
Off to one side of the showroom is a space reserved for the Peter Fetterman Gallery where exclusive photos of various celebrities, including the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, are artfully framed.
There is also a limited-edition “Girls in the Windows” photograph shot in 1960 by Ormond Gigli, who saw a five-story building soon to be torn down on New York's East 58th Street and got women attired in different colored dresses to stand in each of the windows. A Rolls-Royce is parked in front next to a woman wearing an evening gown. The photo sells for $40,000.
In another mini-showroom space is The Eyecreate Salon that will have rotating selections of furniture and pieces created by artists with exceptional design ideas. Right now, there are exclusive collaborations with designers like Charlap Hyman & Herrero, which created a screen with women's profiles and kinetic art tables by Sisyphus Industries, based in Minneapolis. The tables with a glass top have a sunken area filled with sand where a small metal ball, with the help of magnets and technology, continuously rolls creating Zen-like designs. There are also collaborations with Studio William Hefner and Huma Sulaiman Designs.
Fred Segal Home's debut comes just as the HD Buttercup Design Center at 3225 Helms Avenue throws off the wraps of a four-month renovation of its 100,000-square-foot location. The result is a more modern look with enhanced lighting to see furniture, bedding, rugs, and lamps carried inside the venue opened in 2005 at the historic Helms Bakery complex. The complex houses several furniture stores including Rejuvenation and Room & Board as well as restaurants and cafés.
Taking up a little more than 25 percent of the renovated HD Buttercup space is Coco Republic, an Australian brand of indoor and outdoor furniture that acquired HD Buttercup in 2021 through its new owner, Story3 Capital Partner in Los Angeles. Other brands at HD Buttercup include Timothy Oulton, Icon By Design and Vondom, a high-end Spanish outdoor furniture company. New partners include Matouk, Society, John Robshaw, Pom Pom at Home and Coyuchi. There is also a 5,000-square-foot area dedicated to rugs.
“This had been a really big open space before,” said Skye Westcott, U.S. president of Coco Republic, whose office is at the design center. “We felt we needed to remodel to help the customer shop by defining each section.”