California Apparel News

Mindy Lubell, a veteran Los Angeles showroom owner, passed away at her home in Los Angeles May 14 after a bout with cancer.

She was born in Forest Hills, N.Y., and was a lifelong fashion worker. Her grandparents ran a Brooklyn, N.Y., shop called Dave’s Variety Store, where she developed a love for fashion, and started taking notes on how to run a fashion business.

In 1979, she and her twin sister Debbie McGrath took a vacation to Los Angeles, where Lubell fell in love with fashion districts such as Rodeo Drive, as well as the California lifestyle. The sisters decided to move to Los Angeles where they continued to work in fashion.

Lubell had long worked and ran showroom operations in the California Market Center showroom building in downtown Los Angeles since the 1980s. Since 2005, she shared showroom space with Rose Marie “Romy M” Migliazzo. Lubell ran her self-named Mindy Lubell showroom, and Raj Imports was one of her core clients.

“She was a diligent worker,” Migliazzo said. “She came in and she made her calls. It was the one-on-one on getting people on the phone. She would always keep in touch with buyers. Her buyers loved her, and they would always come in and see her.”

Lubell continued to work until a couple of months before her death. She is survived by her husband Kevin Nielsen, her twin sister, and her nephew and niece, Kyle and Morgan McGrath. Her sister said that the kids considered Lubell as a second mother. She also was remembered for loving farmers' markets and watching her husband surf.