Usually preferring to stay out of the spotlight, Fashion Nova’s founder and CEO Richard Saghian made an unusually splashy purchase this week, paying $141 million for a mega-mansion in Bel Air.
The sprawling hilltop estate, complete with 21 bedrooms, a nightclub and multiple pools, is the type of purchase fit for a billionaire. Indeed, by Forbes’ calculations, the fast fashion mogul is worth an estimated $1.4 billion. His fortune stems from his 100% ownership of the company, which does over $1 billion in annual sales, according to a person familiar with the matter. He also has a growing real estate collection, including several mansions in Los Angeles.
Saghian, 40, made his fortune by selling fast fashion to the Instagram set, tapping celebrities like Cardi B, Kylie Jenner and Nicki Minaj to showcase the hundreds of new styles that hit the site every week.
“It’s important to have a lot of styles because our customers post so much online and need new clothes. We don’t want girls showing up to the club in the same outfit. We need 50 different denim jackets. Not just one,” Saghian told Women’s Wear Daily in 2018.
Born in Los Angeles to Iranian parents, he started the online retailer in 2006, selling low-cost club wear to women with Coca-Cola bottle figures. He wanted to take fast fashion and make it even faster, so he tasked manufacturers in his backyard of Los Angeles with quickly stitching together clothing. Rather than opening and stocking stores, he went straight online with new styles and asked celebrities and influencers to post photos wearing the clothing on social media. In 2018, Fashion Nova was the most Googled fashion brand, beating out the likes of Louis Vuitton, Versace and Gucci. Sales grew 20% last year, compared to 2019, according to Earnest Research, which analyzes credit card transactions.
Fashion Nova is part of a crop of so-called ultra fast fashion companies like Asos, Revolve and Shein, frequented by young, online shoppers who like the constant newness and low prices. Unlike H&M and Zara, they don’t have thousands of brick-and-mortar stores.
The company has not gone without scrutiny. In 2016, it was wrapped up in an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department, which found that the workers who made its clothing at factories in Los Angeles had been underpaid. The company denied at the time that it underpaid workers. The workers were not employed directly by Fashion Nova, but by its suppliers.
It has also battled copyright lawsuits, including one from Adidas filed this week. In January, it agreed to pay $4.2 million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that it suppressed negative reviews from its website. Fashion Nova denies that it ever suppressed reviews.
Little is known about Saghian, who rarely speaks with reporters. He long held a tight grip running the company, only hiring a chief financial officer and chief merchandising officer in the last several years. He is not married and doesn’t have any children, but is a self-described “avid collector of real estate.” In 2018, he purchased a Hollywood Hills home that had been previously owned by disc jockey Aviici before he committed suicide, paying $17.5 million. In 2021, Saghian picked up a Malibu beach house for $14.7 million from Netflix executive Ted Sarandos.
His latest purchase, of “The One” in Los Angeles, is his biggest purchase yet and will likely serve as a backdrop for company photoshoots and a place to host celebrities and influencers. It boasts a sky deck with multiple pools, candy room, billiards room, private theater, bowling alley, salon, spa and nightclub.
It was at his Hollywood Hills mansion where an attempted robbery took place last summer, after three men wearing ski masks reportedly followed his Rolls-Royce into the tony enclave and ordered the two men accompanying Saghian to lay on the ground and hand over their watches and jewelry. A confrontation with the security guard led to gunfire, ultimately resulting in four people to be shot and one suspect to be killed. Saghian was not injured.
