Juicy Couture was founded by Gela Taylor and Pamela Skaist-Levy. Taylor was a native New Yorker who held a college degree in drama and had appeared in Broadway productions as well as on some weekly television series in the 1980s. Skaist-Levy, on the other hand, was born in California and attended the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, where part of her curriculum was designing a hat that received favorable notice and was eventually carried at upscale retailers Barneys New York and Fred Segal.