A California Fashion Brand That Wears Its Vintage Roots Like a Second Skin
Julia Chase spent decades in London's vintage markets refining her eye. Now Malibu Road is where that instinct lives — custom blazers, sun-washed denim, and California ease.
Picture a blazer you found at Portobello Market in 1987 — the kind with perfect lapels and a story stitched into every seam — but cut for the life you actually live now. That's the feeling Julia Chase has spent a career chasing and a brand perfecting.
From Portobello Road to the Pacific Coast Highway: The Origin Story
Julia Chase didn't arrive at Malibu Road by accident. She arrived by instinct, following a through-line that started in London's most storied vintage markets — Portobello Road, Kensington Market, the free-spirited bazaars of Ibiza — and wound its way west through decades of serious fashion experience.
She trained her eye early at Biba, the iconic British label that turned tailoring into poetry, before relocating to Los Angeles and building one of the city's most respected fashion showrooms. Her tenure as Creative Director for Georgie and SW3 further sharpened an aesthetic that was always her own: structured but unhurried, European in its precision, Californian in its ease.
Malibu Road is the distillation of all of it. Named for the road that runs along the coast, it was built for women who know exactly what they want from their clothes.
The Aesthetic: When Vintage Tailoring Meets California Light
The Malibu Road woman doesn't choose between polished and relaxed. She wears both at once, and she makes it look inevitable.
Collections are grounded in vintage tailoring — think designer-inspired custom jackets with hand-selected period details, blazers with the kind of structured silhouette that photographs beautifully and feels even better in person. But Chase softens every edge with a Malibu sensibility: sun-washed denim reworked with a bohemian spirit, elevated tops that feel lived-in without looking careless, leather jackets so butter-soft they drape like a second layer of skin.
The balance is deliberate. Nothing in the collection feels costume-y or nostalgic for nostalgia's sake. These are clothes that read as vintage-inspired but live entirely in the present.
Key Pieces Worth Knowing
If you're building a Malibu Road wardrobe — and it does tend to build itself, season after season — a few categories anchor the collection.
The custom vintage blazers are the signature: structured, detailed, and genuinely one-of-a-kind in the way mass-market fashion simply cannot replicate. The custom vintage-designed denim brings the same considered hand to a California wardrobe essential. Butter-soft leather jackets have become quiet staples for clients who return year after year, and the elevated knits and dresses round out a collection that's as functional as it is considered. Many pieces are made in Los Angeles, which matters — you can feel it in the fit.
Chase's personal design filter says everything: "If I can't wear it comfortably, feel really good in it, and go anywhere in it, it doesn't go in the collection." That's not a tagline. It's an editing philosophy that shows up in every piece.
Browse the full collection and read our exclusive designer interview in the Malibu Road Business Spotlight on CalabasasLifestyle.com.
The Woman This Brand Was Made For
She's not chasing trends. She's accumulated taste — through travel, through experience, through knowing which pieces in her closet she reaches for again and again. She appreciates craft without needing to announce it. She wants to look effortlessly dressed, not effortfully curated.
Julia Chase often styles her clients head-to-toe, and the relationships that result speak for themselves: women who return every season, not because they feel they have to, but because they've found something rare — a brand that actually understands them.
Where to Find Malibu Road
Malibu Road is available online at www.malibu-road.com and through private shopping events and charitable fundraisers that make the experience of discovering the brand feel as considered as the clothes themselves. New product categories are on the horizon as the brand continues to grow.
Follow along at @maliburoadclothing on Instagram, reach the team at info@malibu-road.com, or call 310-963-2865 to inquire about upcoming private shopping events or if you want to host an event. And if you haven't already, explore the full Malibu Road feature in our Malibu Road Business Spotlight — it's the kind of brand story that stays with you.
Malibu Road is featured on CalabasasLifestyle.com, your guide to the best of Calabasas, Malibu, Westlake Village, and Agoura Hills. Read the Business Spotlight Story
