Across from a bike path and outdoor gallery, amidst the music recording studios and furniture dealers in North Hollywood, fashion brand Simon Miller has carved out a slice of neo-Mod heaven as it plots growth into the lifestyle space.
Creative director Chelsea Hansford has transformed a 5,200-square-foot warehouse into a dazzling studio and showroom with hanging yellow Kartell pendant lights, red clothing racks, blue rugs, a blocky wood table with a Gaetano Pesce vase at the center, and a monumental copper “Pendulum” sculpture by Leonard Urso hanging nearby.
Hansford has seen year-over-year sales grow 77 percent from 2023 to 2024 by sharpening her price point and homing in on a Space Mod aesthetic that harks back to the Swinging Sixties Rudi Gernreich, body-con era of L.A. fashion, while placing her in the company of the city’s contemporary fashion queens Jasmin Larian of Cult Gaia, Sarah Staudinger of Staud, Erin and Sara Foster of Favorite Daughter and others.
“Her vibe perfectly fits with the brand — she’s brought such colorful, retro and vintage ideas to Simon Miller,” said Shopbop fashion director Caroline Maguire, who has known Hansford for a decade.
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The brand pivoted from denim to ready-to-wear in 2020, had a high-profile collaboration with Spanish fast-fashion giant Mango in 2023, and is selling a vibe with lots of Lurex crochet dresses; sexy striped poplin sets (including the signature Loch tie-back shirt); tailored tank top and pants sets; gummy green sequin dresses; mirrored platform slides, and knot top crescent bags through Shopbop, Neiman Marcus, Saks and Revolve, which has been buying more deeply into the collection.
“Chelsea, who truly embodies the ethos of the brand, has nailed the cult favorite styles that can be reinterpreted and recut each season,” said Divya Mathur, chief merchandising officer and fashion director at Revolve Group, adding that the brand also maintains “a strong level of authenticity and newness each season.”
The company’s 15 employees work in the design studio next door to the showroom, where Hansford has an office with a vintage French Mod red desk and a Verner Panton wool chair. “I find a lot of things on auction,” said the designer, whose 1960s home in Studio City has been featured in Architectural Digest.
“Being in L.A. and having space to create your own home has rekindled my desire to design,” she said. “My aesthetic is 1960s/’70s modern furniture, a lot of fiberglass like the Wendell Castle Molar series, Pierre Paulin fabric and waves and ribbons and tongues, Frank Gehry architecturally, Frank Lloyd Wright, Gaetano Pesce. I call it Space Mod.”
A Fashion Institute of Technology graduate who started her career at Opening Ceremony and Blk Dnm, Hansford joined the Simon Miller team in 2014 to launch womenswear at what was then a men’s denim label. Soon after, the brand launched accessories, including the hit Bonsai bag and Bubble clogs, which have been worn by everyone from Bella Hadid to Martha Stewart.
In 2016, Hansford took over the company as owner, chief executive officer and creative director, and decided to move away from denim and expand into rtw, which is now almost 70 percent of the business, with 30 percent being accessories.
She celebrated her latest summer 2024 “Nights in Tangier” collection with a party last week in another fab interiors space, the Mosaic House.
Dree Hemingway, Langley Fox, Laura and Nathalie Love, Rocky Barnes and Ally Hilfiger were among the guests at the home, a Middle East-meets-medieval marvel in the Hollywood Hills that’s covered in mosaics hand placed more than 49 years by George Ehling (with an assist in the ’70s by next-door-neighbor Harrison Ford, still a carpenter then).
“She has the eye. She just has it innately and you can’t learn or study good taste. You have it or you don’t and she does,” Hilfiger said of Hansford, who played up the Moroccan theme with greeters sporting red-and-white-stripe bellboy outfits, a hookah setup and a table of Instagrammable treats.
“I love how Morocco was this 1970s hot spot eclectic wonder, so I got really into that era,” said Hansford.
Over the past year she’s been sharpening the Simon Miller price point, reducing Msrp by about 30 percent. Prices range from about $245 to $495 for rtw, and an average of $345 for shoes and bags.
“Where we’ve seen success is the perceived value. We’ve really lowered our price point to be ultracompetitive because that white space has gotten smaller and smaller and the advanced contemporary price point is so hard,” she said.
The business is 65 percent wholesale, 35 percent direct-to-consumer, but DTC is growing. Stopping during COVID-19 was an opportunity to relaunch the website and pull back on wholesale. Sales are 95 percent domestic, but Hansford is looking to expand internationally.
Simon Miller also rents on Nuuly.
“I know so many people who rent now,” said Hansford, recalling a recent trip home for Christmas in Florida when her sister arrived with no luggage, and a package waiting for her with an entire wardrobe for the trip. “And it was cute stuff!”
Over the years Hansford’s view on marketing has evolved. Initially she built the brand on organic influencer placement. “I remember when Blanca Miró posted our first printed jean and we sold so many, but now it’s just not that anymore. Everyone has an affiliate link, and you don’t know what’s what,” she said.
Simon Miller has shown at New York Fashion Week, but the designer now finds it too cluttered for a small brand like hers (annual sales are less than $20 million) to make much of an impact.
So she’s focusing on brand moments like the Nights in Tangier party.
“Building the lifestyle is more important, and moving here was great because we finally had a big enough space to create something,” she said of leaving New York for Los Angeles during the pandemic.
Simon Miller has also been growing brand awareness through collaborations and has more in store for 2025.
“Coming off Mango my expectations have become higher,” she said, praising the retailer for bringing a luxury quality to the mass market by way of elevated photography, marketing and design sensibility. “It was huge for brand awareness; first they were going to roll it out to 13 doors and then they were so obsessed with the collab they rolled it out to 75 doors,” she said.
“Identifying who is interested in amplifying is key,” she cautioned of evaluating potential partners. “I’ve done collabs with Melissa, great product — we basically gave them our ‘It’ shoe for a small royalty — but zero marketing amplification aside from Instagram posts.
“That’s the challenge in trying to run a profitable business and trying to grow your brand awareness.…They’re two different things. So we’re just trying to be really resourceful and creative.”
So far, L.A. has been a fitting muse.
“I just can’t believe some of the houses you see driving down the streets. It’s like, where am I?” she said. “And the art fairs and design fairs coming back, and Casa Perfect.…I know they have it in New York, too, but there is something about blending the home and art space I find very cool about L.A. And designing for the women you see in these spaces is what I do.”
