California Apparel News

Orange County may be a hotbed of retail shopping, but the beachside community of Corona del Mar is known more for Main Street charm than urban fashion.

Enter Erica Dee.

The airy, 1,500-square-foot boutique on Pacific Coast Highway is a first for owner Erica Berge, 26, who felt the area was ripe for an upscale clothing store.

“We want to be a mini-Fred Segal,” said Berge, but without the steep price tags, she added.

Clothing items at Erica Dee top out at $300, a strategy that has kept the cash register ringing since the store opened last month.

“In my first month, I brought in $150,000 in sales and I had projected half of that,” she said.

Berge is a native of the area and former manager of the Holly Sharpe Signature boutique (featuring Lucy Love) in Corona del Mar, practically the only competition around. She said she isn’t vying with Fashion Island in Newport Beach and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, two nearby, upscale malls that cater to a mainstream audience. Corona del Mar Plaza, also in the neighborhood, is a smaller shopping center that offers limited apparel.

So far, Erica Dee customers are opting for Seven jeans, Michael Stars T-shirts, Theory pants, and True Couture and Diane von Furstenberg silk dresses. Berge’s accessory line includes $150 Chista clutch handbags fashioned with fishbone buttons and crystals, jewelry by Chan Luu and White Trash Charms, and sequined slides, sandals and thong shoes by Yellowbox, Beach Club and Seychelles.

Most designers were anxious to take a chance on Berge’s destination-oriented store to reach an untapped market.

“She’s got a good eye and buys well,” said Shawn Janet, owner of True Couture. “Our clothes fit that earthy, beachy lifestyle and we weren’t in the area. She’ll be our little flagship.”

The store’s eclectic, mid-century modern motif, designed with the help of Quiksilver executive Roger Russell, features stained-concrete floors, Asian-inspired light fixtures, actual tree-stump stands and armless, cream-colored sofas. Walnut cubbyholes containing T-shirts and gift items line the walls, and even a suspended tree branch is used to display clothing.

Berge also got an assist from her dad in financing the store’s $250,000 startup costs.

“I wrote a 30-page business plan and got a business loan from him,” said Berge, who plans on opening two more Erica Dee locations within the next five years, including one in San Francisco.

Casting aside a pre-law degree, Berge followed her fashion instincts and graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising four years ago. She worked a number of positions—from designing to inventory stocking to selling—during the 1996 openings of Anthropologie stores in Fashion Island and on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

Though Berge knows the ropes of working a small boutique, area merchants say running one in a beach community has its limitations.

“I can’t get too edgy. You can touch on a trendhellip;and tone it down with a black skirt,” said Amii English, owner of Little Bohemian, a four-year-old boutique in Laguna Beach. “People in the suburbs of L.A. don’t dress like those in L.A. You can’t wear stilettos in Laguna Beach walking around the beach or in the office.”