Judy's was a chain of
clothing stores, based in
Van Nuys, Los Angeles.
Marcia Israel (Mrs. Lawrence Israel, later Marcia Israel-Curley) founded Judy's in 1946 and ran it until 1989 when she sold it to Laws International of
Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
for $31 million.
[ Israel-Curley died in 2004.
]
Fashion
Judy's sold sportswear and fashion accessories, the women's stores catering to juniors: slim-cut, trendy styles.
In the late 1940s, Israel wrote, there were generally no boutiques catering exclusively for juniors and hardly any clothing companies producing styles for the juniors market. Israel wrote that she developed numerous groundbreaking concepts that were copied by other designers and retailers, such as the short-sleeve sweater and workmen's five-pocket jeans for casual use (accessorized with Ked's sneakers
Sneakers (American English, US) or trainers (British English, UK), also known by a #Names, wide variety of other names, are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise, but are also widely used for everyday casual ...
) by women.[
Israel was long considered a fashion authority; for example a 1970 interview in the ]Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
around the topic of longer hemlines for women's skirts. Israel confirmed that longer midi skirt hemlines were "flourishing", though the lower hemlines "should not be forced; they must ripen like fruit". The Judy's "empire" was considered a "bellwether by great numbers of astute fashion people", according to the ''Times''.
Development of stores
Israel began the chain in January, 1946 in a 7-by-12-foot space (84 sq. ft.) carved out of a movie theater lobby on Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles. She proceeded to open a 360-square-foot store in 1948 in Compton, an 800-square-foot store on May 9, 1949 on Lankershim Boulevard
Lankershim Boulevard is a major north-south arterial road the runs for in the eastern San Fernando Valley in the Los Angeles, California.
Geography
Lankershim Boulevard's northern terminus is at San Fernando Road in Sun Valley, Los Angele ...
in North Hollywood, and in 1952, a 3,500-square-foot store in the new Lakewood Center, the United States' first fully-enclosed mall.flagship store
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...
. By 1970, there were 17 Judy's.
The chain at its peak it had 107 stores. In 1989, it operated 70 women's clothing stores and 34 "GHq" men's clothing stores in California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
and a handful in four other Western states.
Epilogue
In 1993 the chain declared bankruptcy, disposed of the GHq men's chain and relaunched with a slimmed-down 52-store branch network.Forever 21
F21 OpCo LLC, trade name, doing business as Forever 21, was a multinational fast-fashion retailer. It was originally founded as Fashion 21 in Highland Park, Los Angeles, Highland Park, Los Angeles in 1984.Forever 21History & Facts, n.d. Retrieved ...
, while converting 4 remaining locations to Charlotte Russe branches.
External links
Judy's (Facebook page)
References
{{History of Retail in Southern California
Defunct clothing retailers of the United States
Defunct companies based in California
Van Nuys, Los Angeles