Until recently, the now-darkened storefront of Riviera Village’s Lisa Z prominently displayed one word: Sale, over and over again, in the shop’s windows. The clearance of inventory marked the end of a store that had been in business in Riviera Village since 1990.
As it turns out, the closure of Lisa Z was, itself, driven by a sale: That of the building, owned by Ron and Lisa Zagha, for a sum they declined to disclose – though as Ron Zagha noted, the sale turned out to be a “pretty, pretty nice payday.”
“Our business is as good as it’s ever been,” he said. “We’re at the top of our game, and that’s the way we wanted to leave. We didn’t want to do this because we had to, but because we wanted to.
Lisa Z opened in 1990, after a bid by the Zaghas to buy a Century City-store owned by Lisa’s mother failed when she “reneged” on the deal, Ron Zagha said. “That was a blessing. We would’ve been stuck in an identity that wasn’t ours.”
Lisa began working at her mother’s shop at 21, after she earned her degree in psychology from UCLA. “I had a really tough, antagonistic, adversarial relationship with mom. Nothing pleased her; this was stupid, that was stupid…I know now it wasn’t me,” she said. “But because nothing I ever did was right, I kept striving. ‘Maybe she’ll think I did this good.’”
Though the two have since patched up their relationship, it’s clear that her time working under her mother was a motivating factor.
Ron and Lisa opened Lisa Z in 1990. Lisa’s philosophies, her skills as a buyer and as her eye for ensembles grew their business.
“There’s a certain instinct [a buyer has], where you get out of your head; when you’re looking at a line, you have to be able to remove your brains and your personality – and she has a lot of both – and instinctively know when something is right,” Ron Zagha said.
The rest came from Lisa’s growing philosophies on how to make a customer feel comfortable in her shop…and the effect of clothing on a person’s mindset. After all, as she said in the weeks leading to the store’s close, there is no “Forever 55” – that was her store’s niche, so she took care to cater to women who didn’t fit within the most popular fashion demographics.
“Whoever came in, from whatever age group they came from, I would put on something that was the background to their upbringing, even tailoring the music so they’d have sense memory, trying to reinforce the experience,” she said.
The idea, as she illustrated in chalk during the store’s farewell party, is that fashion can be a tool in a person’s identity.
“I wanted customers to feel ‘I’m not fat and overweight; I can be sexy, I can rock these tight jeans, and I never thought I could do that.’ Well of course you can,” she said. “You put on a really long top and you wear that to the Stones concert, and it’ll look a hell of a lot better than dumpy-ass shorts from Target and a huge Redondo Beach sport fishing shirt.
“We’re conditioned to be critical of ourselves, and have to fit that ‘ideal mold.’ If someone perceives themselves to be too fat, too short, too tall, over the hill, they put a limitation on themselves. That’s bull – why are you limiting yourself? Why aren’t you thinking ‘I am somebody, and I can look attractive and project out into the world who I am with my clothes.’ Why would you want to discriminate against yourself?”
“Lisa is a fashion icon,” longtime Lisa Z customer Faye Strumpf said during a party thrown last Saturday, the store’s last day open. Lisa Z closed its doors a week earlier than planned as the store simply ran out of inventory.
“She had things for everybody, in different styles. It wasn’t some place to go in and get a particular designer’s outfit; it’s an outfit for you,” longtime Lisa Z customer Faye Strumpf said.
Strumpf was one of dozens of shoppers who poured into Lisa Z on its last day, when what remained of the store’s stock (and its fixtures) went up for sale. Many of the women in the store on its last day were loyal customers and friends of the Zaghas and were treated to a friendly spread of small sandwiches and desserts, while a few bottles of wine were passed around. Some even shared swigs from a bottle of tequila in the store’s backroom, at Lisa’s desk.
“You feel so welcome in here. It’s a family oriented place, and it’s a one-stop shop; you can get your shoes, your purses, your clothes, your jewelry here, and that’s what makes it hard,” Jerrilyn Schoellerman said at the store’s closure.
“It’s so easy to walk in here and get everything – the people, they just dress me. They bring everything to the dressing room and I don’t have to worry about a thing.”
While the closure has been emotional, the Zaghas feel that it’s time.
“It feels good,” Ron Zagha said. “Maybe a bit early, but I’ve been working every day of my life since I was 12, so I’m a bit tired.”
“Right now I’m happy to do nothing except being a domestic engineer,” Lisa Zagha said. “I worked so hard and tried so hard, looking at brands and finding items that were trending, getting a better price, and a better price.”
“I’m looking forward to going down to Laguna Beach when a girlfriend calls me up, and not saying ‘Well, I have to open up the store tomorrow.’” ER
