Chic? Tres!

JEROME DAHAN, the Paris-born creative force behind the hip denim lines 7 for All Mankind and Citizens of Humanity, approaches his home with the same eye for detail that infused his Hollywood blue jeans with City of Light street style. The residence is pure Left Bank elan woven with kicked-back Californian charm, a 1927 Santa Monica Mediterranean that seems fashioned from 1960s French cinema.

"Like one of Jerome's favorites, Claude Chabrol's 'Les Biches,' " says Lela Tillem, Dahan's fiancee and Citizens' head of sales, who lives in the house along with Dahan's two teenage sons. "Though his aesthetic is everything-just-so, we have a really casual lifestyle. So the house has to fit like a good pair of jeans."

Two years ago Dahan sold a majority stake in Citizens for $250 million, but his home is hardly the compound some might expect. Hidden behind an oxidized Cor-Ten steel gate, the lot occupies less than a quarter-acre. The two-story house has just three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. A free-standing cabana in the backyard has been transformed into a tiny poolside guest room. The old garage is now a laundry room.

"When I saw this house, I fell in love with everything -- the proportions, the doors, windows, molding and finishes," he says. "I was captivated by the sophisticated details. For me it doesn't matter how big it is or whether it is new or old. It has to have character."

THOUGH it is modest in scale, the house exudes a quiet and timeless grandeur all the same. Landscape designer Jay Griffith created two entrances: The first opens from the sidewalk into a space that incorporates a driveway and stepping stones surrounded by Australian tree ferns and philodendron, all leading to an old Moroccan door framed by pink and peach bougainvillea.

Beyond that lies an inner paved courtyard with all-weather woven furnishings grouped around a concrete water wall.

It is in this lush garden that the house begins to beguile, transporting visitors into a setting that seems more European than California Spanish. Though the roof is red-tiled, the house is not painted in any sunny shade usually applied to stucco.

Instead, the exterior is a cool, mossy gray trimmed in glossy black. A window-lined galley kitchen defines the south wall, evoking a country home near the French-Italian border. Through the beveled glass panes of French windows lies a stone-paved patio, the look echoed in a kitchen floor that previous owners imported from an Italian monastery. Skylights illuminate marble countertops, white-paneled cabinetry and an island surrounded by iron campaign stools.