Frederick's shift from fantasy to fashion pushes up sales: less-racy lingerie draws more female customers.

If you walked into a Frederick's of Hollywood Inc. store six years ago, when the company was winding its way through bankruptcy, you would have found yourself in a pink sea of lingerie so lacy and racy that it could have made a sailor blush.

In fact, some of Frederick's best customers were once sailors and other young men who wanted to buy something naughty for their girlfriend or wife.

But today, almost four years after emerging from bankruptcy, Frederick's flagship store on Hollywood Boulevard has moved across the street to sleeker digs. Sure, the new storefront displays the company's signature deep-red corset, but the merchandise inside tips more toward bras and panties in fashion colors, items not much more provocative than those found in department stores.

And the customers are less likely to be young men than young women, who are looking for items they can wear fairly often, not just for intimate evenings at home.

"When Frederick's first started, it looked like a skanky show on Hollywood Boulevard," said Al Frank of Deloitte & Touche LLP.

"Now it's totally mainstream and it's something people do that's fun. It's a fashion statement," he said.

By moving away from what men fantasize about and more toward what women will buy, Frederick's has entered a much bigger market. The so-called intimate apparel industry, worth $10 billion. But it's tougher. Limited Brands Inc.'s Victoria's Secret is the 900-pound gorilla with $3.2 billion in sales, but department stores and boutiques are also players.

"Victoria's Secret has some ankle biters," said Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association. "And Frederick's is definitely one of them."

The hard way

Frederick's has come a fair distance in recent years.

For years, recalls President Linda LoRe, Frederick's had been "a business run for cash." Several owners came and went.

The situation was so bad that LoRe turned down the first offer for her job. She changed her mind in 1999 after a brief, in-house consulting stint convinced her that there were opportunities because Frederick's is such a well-known brand. (The 60-year-old company introduced black underwear in the 1940s, push-up bras in the '50s, and thong underwear in the '80s.)

By 2000, Frederick's was having trouble paying its $67 million in debt from its $140 million in revenues, LoRe said. The company, headquartered on Sunset Boulevard not far from the flagship store, filed for bankruptcy protection the following year.

"The turnaround came when we called a standstill to the debt that impaired us from being able to repair necessary, basic systems and operations to help the business grow," said LoRe.

As new managers came on board, the company started to focus on the new products and connecting with women.

The company emerged from bankruptcy in January 2003, and another turning point came in May 2004 when Tokarz Investments LLC and Mellon HBV Alternative Strategies LLC bought the company.

'That's when the shareholders started putting money back into the company," LoRe said. "And the effects of that are what we' re seeing today."

Fredericks has posted 43 consecutive weeks in positive weekly year-over-year sales.

The company's catalog and Internet business has been posting mid-double digit growth, the company said, declining to offer any revenue or profit growth.

Frederick's has fewer stores than it did at the outset of bankruptcy, 134 compared to 207, but the stores have more revenue per square foot, said Denise Marsicano, senior vice president of real estate and store planning.

"We got rid of the dead weight, the stores that were in undesirable locations, and got into better places," she said. Now Marsicano's goal is to be in only "A" malls, of which there are about 400 in the country. The new stores in Westfield Century City and Westfield Topanga malls are a prime example of the shift, she said. Now she's focused on not just the right mall, but the right placement in the right mall.

She's going to stay busy. LoRe is expecting to open up to 50 stores within the next 24 to 36 months.

While in bankruptcy, management took a long, hard look at the brand. Frederick's had three different logos. Management settled on "Fred red," a rich scarlet that evoked passion, fashion, and long Hollywood carpets.

"We started putting new things in our vocabulary," said Yolanda Dunbar, senior vice president of corporate brand marketing and strategy. "We focused on fashion, trends like lingerie as an accessory."

The new Frederick's customer, Dunbar said, is a woman between 18 and 35 who buys lingerie about twice as often as the average consumer. These are women who look to Hollywood for inspiration, scanning celebrity magazines for fashion tips.

The company has introduced a series of bras with the word "Hollywood" in the title. Frederick's "Hollywood Triple Feature Bra" is now its best selling brassiere.

"We just put the 'Hollywood' right in there," Dunbar said. The Hollywood Dream Corset remains its best-selling product--and the industry leader.

The company has sold street clothing for more than 10 years, but it's taken a page from its chief rival and introduced lines e of perfume, lotion and body jewelry in the last 3 years. The fragrance has taken off particularly well. LoRe, Dunbar and the general manager of merchandising, John Schulman, are Giorgio veterans.

Frederick's has also partnered with stars like Susan Sarandon and Julianne Moore on charity events, and auctioned corsets designed by Charlize Theron, Jessica Alba and Reese Witherspoon.

Perhaps the ultimate Hollywood tie-in is a new line of "shapewear" designed by celebrity stylists Estee Stanley and Cristina Ehrlich. The "Premier Line" hoists, tucks or pads areas so that a clingy dress with a plunging neckline can really sing. Stanley, who dresses Eva Mendes and Penelope Cruz, said no woman in Hollywood goes out without some sort of underpinning.

Peanut gallery

"In the past, lingerie was something a man bought for a woman on a special occasion," said Roseanne Morrison, fashion director at the Doneger Group. "Now women are shopping for themselves for sexy lingerie, expensive jewelry. There's a whole new way to shop and that's going to affect the lingerie business for sure."

But Morrison wonders if the company has gone far enough.

"I always think of them as the brand where the man bought for the woman and I think they need to market to the modern woman," she said, explaining that she hasn't seen any changes in the way the company markets itself. If Frederick's is serious about reaching women and connecting with them as purveyors of fashion, the company will advertise in fashion magazines and get its products into department stores.

Frederick's relies on PR and marketing, buying only regional ads. And there are no plans to introduce their merchandise in department stores.

However, Metchek of the fashion association disagrees. She remembers the days when most women wouldn't want to open a gift from Frederick's in mixed company for fear they'd have to hold up a pair of crotchless underwear.

"When I go to showers for young girls, you see a lot of Frederick's of Hollywood boxes, where I never saw them before," she said, adding that the company's products have moved to the top, from the bottom, of women's drawers. "It's now acceptable lingerie."

The trashy items are still there, you just have to go to the back of the store. And the company catalog still has four pages of role-playing costumes. You just have to dig a little deeper these days.

LoRe is quick to say that Frederick's customers can't be moved too quickly in one direction.

"We can't make 20 years of changes in one catalog," she said. "But we can do it over seven years."

By EMILY BRYSON YORK

Staff Reporter