Co-owner and President Mandy Fry waited years for the call that would allow the retailer Z Supply to take over a larger operational footprint in Orange County.
This year, the phone finally rang.
Upon the exit of L Space from a 16,142-square-foot office in the same Costa Mesa building as Z Supply, landowner CJ Segerstrom & Sons offered the space to Fry, along with another vacant warehouse area next door.
Z Supply is now leasing the entire building at 3500 Hyland Ave., doubling its head-quarters to 54,475 square feet, made possible by recent growth in production and sales.
Its clothing is sold at Bloomingdale’s and nearly 3,000 independent boutiques, reaching shoppers from Southern California to small towns like Ennis, Montana.
Growing Into Its Space
The womenswear retailer moved into its current 24,021-square-foot space in 2020, shortly after Fry joined the company as president. She remembers overhauling the building’s brown carpets and low ceilings to create a brighter, more open workspace.
“I thought, ‘One day, we’re going to big enough to take over this whole building. Our business is going to be big enough to warrant it,’” Fry told the Business Journal.
Since Fry came onboard, Z Supply has launched several new categories of apparel and accessories that have expanded the retailer’s line of products beyond the knit sweaters that co-founders Greg Garrett and John Zhao started the brand with. The most recent addition was denim in July.
“It has started to be a ‘headliner’ in stores,” Fry said, referencing feedback from the 2,200 retail partners that stock Z Supply clothes.
Fry’s goal is to make Z Supply the go-to lifestyle brand for the female consumer, “to dress her from head-to-toe.” In 2023, she was recognized at the Business Journal’s 29th annual Women in Business Awards.
In 2024, the apparel company reported $120 million in revenue, a 20% jump from 2023. Earlier this year, Chief Financial Officer Ann Fong said Z Supply was “on track to $200 million.”
It also increased local headcount to 135 employees as of September, up 39% from two years ago. The additional space will make room for more.
“Our expansion is strategic,” Fry said. “And we are doing it in a way that we know will remain healthy.”
What’s Happening in HQ
Z Supply moved its production, merchandise and design teams into the former L Space office in May, where employees are developing the spring and summer 2027 collections.
The space includes a design studio filled with fabric swatches, prototypes and plans for upcoming seasons, along with an archive of past styles used as references for patterns and colors. Fitting rooms have also been relocated there, allowing the team to finalize designs before sending specifications to factory partners for full-scale production.
A special project for Fry is a library of fashion and design books that employees can borrow for inspiration.
The next phase of expansion will begin in January with interior demolition of the remaining vacant space, followed by construction in April.
Plans call for expanding Z Supply’s photo studio, built a few years ago to give the retailer greater creative control over its online and social media imagery. The expansion could accommodate six new stages, allowing multiple teams to shoot simultaneously. Fry plans to invest in new lighting and camera equipment and possibly rent the studio to outside businesses.
The company’s main warehouse, which houses its archives and shipping operations, will move to a larger storage area with access to a loading dock.
“It’s currently bursting at the seams,” Fry said during a tour of the facility.
Z Supply aims to occupy the remaining space by July 2027.
Not Competing with Boutiques
Fry’s first launch of new apparel at Z Supply was loungewear in 2020. Since then, the retailer has added several more categories such as activewear, eyewear, sleepwear and now denim as part of her plan to build a more well-rounded closet for consumers.
Z Supply’s business is made up of a combination of wholesale and e-commerce, with a focus on independent clothing boutiques.
“It’s really important to nurture both,” Fry said. “We’re growing organically. We don’t need to be everywhere right now,” she said of not operating any brick-and-mortar locations or distributing to department stores.
The firm has maintained a years-long partnership with only one department store, Bloomingdale’s, with no focus on entering others. Z Supply is in 26 locations and has even debuted on a few store websites this year.
However, the company will continue supporting small, independent retail businesses. It doesn’t even mark down products on the website, avoiding sales of any kind so as not to steal traffic from retail partners.
“We don’t want to compete with our boutiques,” Fry said.
