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Fred Segal Opens a Fashion 'Lending Library' at Loews Santa Monica

August 29, 2011 at 5:03 PM | by | Comments (0)

Let's be real here. When you come to Los Angeles for a trip--whether it be business, leisure or to meet up with that "director" who you met online in a chat room--you are going to want to see some celebrities. In fact, you won't go home unless you see one.

Now if you're staying on the Westside (and that means anything west of Beverly Hills), we usually recommend popping into glorious boutique fashion mecca Fred Segal for a guaranteed celeb sighting. After all Blake and Leo were spotted there last week. But Fred Segal is also great for, duh, shopping and now the Loews Santa Monica Hotel has wisely partnered up with the store to bring the fashion to its guests.

The very first "Fred Segal Lending Library" allows guests to choose from a collection of jewelery, books, purses, scarves, sunglasses and other "must-have" accessories to borrow during their stay.

The "library" includes 50 accessories for men, women, children and even pets (!!) with all of the items carefully selected by Kirsten Segal, director of marketing and event planning at the store. (That's her above showing off her picks to the hotel's chef concierge, Michael Fox.

“When stocking the library, I thought of items I forgot to pack in the past and wished I had the opportunity to borrow from a hotel,” said Segal. “I focused on accessories because I felt guests would forget to bring those little details or would be more inclined to borrow something fun for the weekend that they didn’t already own.”

This is a genius new service as we hate packing multiple purses when we travel so it would be nice to just bring along our overstuffed tote and then pop into the library to borrow an evening clutch or a cute day bag. But be careful, if you run off with a Lending Library item, you will be billed for it.

The only catch is that the library is only available to folks who book a suite during the hotel's Suite Deal promotion. (Cue Debbie Downer song.) Suites typically start at around $600 a night and while this new deal includes free internet, free parking, a food and beverage credit of $50 a day and a welcome amenity, we might as well just pack our own evening clutch.

Still, we love this idea and think more hotels should add these types of "libraries" to their list of services now.

[Photos: Loews Santa Monica]

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