Shelli Segal, the Los Angeles contemporary sportswear designer who was behind such labels as Laundry by Shelli Segal and Bailey 44, died Feb. 3 at her Los Angeles home. She was 65.
The cause of death was uterine cancer, which she had been fighting for 10 years, said her husband Moshé Elimelech.
Segal was born in Dallas in 1964 and was the daughter of Jerry, a comedy writer, producer and author, and Ann, a comedic actress. Her family eventually relocated to New York City, where Segal graduated from Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art and won an art scholarship to the State University of New York at Purchase. She also attended the Mayer School of Fashion Design.
Segal pursued a career as a painter before entering fashion, but moved into fashion when she severed her left index finger in an art project accident involving a circular saw. After that accident, she dropped out of SUNY Purchase.
“I suddenly felt a sense of immediacy about things, and since I was interested in fashion, I figured that if I wanted to do it, I should go for it,” Segal told WWD in 1998.
Her mother, Ann Benson Segal, said Segal started drawing when she was a
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