40th Anniversary : Frederick’s Cuts Down Glitz, Keeps Up Shape

Ancient Egyptians created loin cloths, skirts and other linen garments so fine that they were virtually transparent.

Botticelli’s models in Renaissance Italy wore gauzy, loose-fitting outfits, the forerunners of thin, cotton see-through gowns worn by early 19th-Century European women.

Victorian women donned lacy, colored, transparent underwear along with colored silk and satin petticoats and embroidered stockings that were supposed to be seen when they lifted their skirts.

That history notwithstanding, it was still somewhat scandalous when Frederick Mellinger, inspired by the Betty Grable pinup, introduced his line of scanty undergarments in 1946.

But time passes, and the line seems far less shocking this month as the the 140-store lingerie chain Mellinger created, Frederick’s of Hollywood, celebrates its 40th anniversary selling what one fashion expert sees as virtually a bit of Americana.

“They have stayed with that pinup style of the ‘40s for 40 years,” said Edward Maeder, curator of costumes and textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “The slightly naughty, but not necessarily offensive look. I would call it almost an American folk dress. It sounds odd, but a folk dress is a fashion that stops and remains the same.”

Now, prodded by the first annual loss in company history--a deficit of $148,000 on sales of $45 million last year--Frederick’s is modifying that “folk dress” and trying to change its image.

Edible Love Oils

The customer will still find the type of items that made Frederick’s famous: edible love oils, lacy, backless, one-piece Little Bare’s and padded panties that shape the derriere.

And the centerpiece of the business, the original Hollywood Boulevard store, retains its two-story purple exterior and gold, cranberry and peach interior.

But as the Hollywood store traded briskly in brief nurse and pirate Halloween costumes this week, some things were different. Opaque blue and green teddies and camisoles joined traditional red and black see-through items on the racks.

The store catalogue had excised bare-breasted models, and Frederick’s no longer sold books on sexual positions or other items that current management considered offensive.

While the Hollywood store retained its gaudy color scheme, a Frederick’s branch store at the Del Amo Fashion Square in Torrance, the prototype for a company-wide remodeling program, lured customers with muted lavender carpeting, mauve walls and pink dressing rooms.

George Townson, who took over as chairman and chief executive officer in 1985, the year after Mellinger retired, said the company changed when it was forced to seek a more mainstream market.

“I reviewed the company for three months before I agreed to take over,” said Townson, 45. “The bottom line came across as an untapped gold mine. It just needed updating and tender loving care.”

Townson said department stores, independents and the Limited’s 133-store intimate apparel chain, Victoria’s Secret, had been taking discreet bites out of the intimate apparel market that Frederick’s used to dominate.

Prodded by the competition, Frederick’s started its upscale Private Moments stores, now open in eight locations.

But competition was not Frederick’s only marketing problem, Townson said. Standing outside many Frederick’s stores in shopping malls had convinced the new CEO that the outlets “stood out negatively to mainstream customers. The types of mannequins and the look in the window was always sort of hard. It reeked of Hollywood in a negative context. There was too much glitz. . . .”

“People walking by were almost embarrassed to go in,” he said.

Sitting in Mellinger’s former office in the basement of the Hollywood store, Townson said Frederick’s needed to change that impression.

“We want to be known as a legitimate intimate apparel company, not just as a flaky, kooky place to get off-color items. . . ,” he said.

‘Sleazy Is Bad’

“We use the guideline sexy is good; sleazy is bad. It’s a fine line. Sometimes it’s purely judgmental. But I get very offended when we are referred to in print as sleazy merchants. The problem is the image in the customer’s mind, which takes a long time to change.”

Frederick’s hopes to accomplish the change without softening public demand for its bras. Although promotions for items such as black nighties, five-inch heels, and musical panties created Mellinger’s reputation as the “King of Fashion Passion,” bras have always been the foundation of Frederick’s business, accounting for 30% of current sales.

During its anniversary celebration, the Hollywood store has exhibited earlier Frederick’s gowns and bras, including two from the 1950s: the heavily stitched missile and snow cone bras for “ladies who wanted to look pointy and projected” and the rising star, which “pushed up and in and gave you cleavage,” said Ruth Frolove, the bra buyer for Frederick’s stores.

Frolove said the Hollywood store sells 22 models of bras, all in the “moderate to better” price range of $17 to $25, while the remainder of the chain’s merchandise is priced “low to moderate.”

Mellinger, a dapper, handsome man with a small mustache, started the bra business in an era when he prowled Hollywood night spots not looking for women but observing how they dressed, Frolove said.

He approved all bra designs. “There was not a bra (design) that went into a retail store and catalogue that was not fitted on a model,” Frolove said.

“He would go up to the model with a ruler and he would never touch her, but if the bra did not measure exactly seven inches between the tips, or whatever it was supposed to, he would send it back for adjustment because it did not fit.”

Training Video

Frolove perpetuates Mellinger’s ideas in a 25-minute training video that is required viewing for Frederick’s nationwide sales force.

She says that “75% of all women who enter your store are not wearing a properly fitted bra. . . .”

Saying that pregnancy, exercise, weight loss or weight gain can change the size of a breast, she shows how to measure the bust and how to fit the bra.

In an interview, Frolove said, “The big thing is fit. . . . She may be one size on the right and one size on the left. She may have been an A cup all her life and decided that she wants to be a 34 B, which is the size eight of 10 women think they are. So we help them.”

Frederick’s latest form of help is a bra with shoulder pads sewn onto the straps, designed to appeal in an era when big shoulders are fashionable. It is an idea Mellinger probably would appreciate.

A Brentwood resident who still owns the majority of Frederick’s stock, Mellinger no longer gives interviews but he told The Times in 1979 that he developed his fashion concepts after fantasizing over his Betty Grable pinup during World War II and asking fellow Army Signal Corps members what they liked and didn’t like about the way women dress.

Concepts Rejected

Armed with that information, and rejecting the concepts of fashion designers everywhere, he started a mail-order business to design women’s clothes from a man’s point of view. He leased a 4-foot-by-4-foot office in New York and called it Frederick’s of Fifth Avenue.

Mellinger almost went broke, but he saved money by receiving goods at his parents’ house. He soon moved to Los Angeles and opened another cubbyhole in Chinatown, where he changed the name to Frederick’s of Hollywood.

“I had no intentions at the time of opening a retail store because I knew nothing about it,” he said. “But people who had seen our ads began coming into the store and asking if they could try on some of our clothes. I said, ‘Sure, but you’ll have to use the bathroom.’

“Actually what it was was an outhouse propped-up behind the building where I could see their feet and legs and head while they tried on the clothes.”

Mellinger moved to another Chinatown location and to three other spots before settling at the current Hollywood site in the early 1960s.

No to Paris Designers

As his stores expanded across the nation, he offered a simple explanation for their success in a 1974 interview.

“I never listen to Paris designers,” he said. “They don’t dress women for men. . . .

“You know, I’ve had a few cracks calling me a male chauvinist pig and all. But I’ve been out for the women’s cause longer than any designer. I’m one of the few that wants to make a woman look and feel comfortable as a woman.”

Frederick’s shoppers seem to agree.

“It’s exotic. The whole image of Frederick’s is sexy and it captivates you,” said Traci DuBe, 17, of Torrance as she wrapped a red feather boa around her neck in the Del Amo store. “ . . . If I could, I’d have one of everything. It fits the stereotypes of most people’s hidden desires and fantasies.”

“It’s sexier (than garments in other stores) and the woman in you comes out,” said Flora Smith, a Lawndale chiropractic assistant who bought a barmaid’s Halloween costume. “If you ever want to look sexy for your man, this is the place to go. It’s fun.”

Dorothy Brendia, 24, of Torrance, shopping with her boyfriend, bought a French maid’s costume for the holiday.

‘Sexy, Sweet’ Clothes

“I like the clothes,” she said. “They’re sexy and they’re sweet. A lot of designers suits are so masculine and their dresses look like some man’s shirt. I find it hard to find something feminine and sexy in a department store.”

“The name has a lot to do with why you go in,” said her boyfriend, Sal Orlando, 27, of San Pedro. “You feel a little naughty when you walk inside. I think that’s good. It’s exciting.”

The name had a lot to do with Diane Seniw, 23, an executive secretary from Troy, Mich., buying a teal robe and a camisole and tap pants in the Hollywood store last week.

Seniw heard about the original Fredericks’s at home. When she came to Orange County for a vacation, she became one of thousands of tourists each year who visit the Hollywood location.

“This was the original,” she said. “We wanted to see what they had.”

Visited Hollywood Store

Colleen Butler, 18, grew up reading Frederick’s catalogues in Lake Tahoe. When she moved to Burbank to work as a customer service representative for a bank, she visited the Hollywood store too.

“Whoever Frederick was,” she said, perusing the stockings and panty hose, “when he invented the stuff, he knew how to make a woman’s figure look good, and that’s important because it makes you feel good.”

Some women said they still felt uncomfortable shopping in the store, however.

At the Del Amo outlet, a tall, slender woman tried on lacy garters and then said she would only identify herself by occupation--teacher--and not by name.

Standing outside the store, she said she had just attended a school district orientation meeting where teachers had been warned about drinking, conduct away from the campus and proper dress.

“Schools are still ultraconservative,” she said. “ . . . I wouldn’t like a bunch of students to see me walking out of that store.” Susanna Shuster of The Times editorial library contributed to this story.