ABOUT VICTORIA'S SECRET
Victoria's Secret is the largest American retailer of lingerie, 2012 sales were $6.12 billion. The company sells lingerie, womenswear, and beauty products through its catalogs (sending out 375 million a year), website, and its U.S. stores. Victoria's Secret is wholly owned by publicly traded L Brands company.
HISTORY OF VICTORIA'S SECRET
Victoria's Secret was founded by Tufts University and Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus Roy Raymond, and his wife Gaye, in San Francisco, California, on June 12, 1977
Victoria's Secret grossed $500,000 in its first year of business, enough to finance the expansion from a headquarters and warehouse to four new store locations and a mail-order operation.
In 1983, Leslie Wexner revamped Victoria's Secret. He discarded the money-losing model of selling lingerie to male customers and replaced it with one that focused on women. Victoria's Secret transformed from "more burlesque than Main Street" to a mainstay that sold broadly accepted underwear. The "new colors, patterns and styles that promised sexiness packaged in a tasteful, glamorous way and with the snob appeal of European luxury" were supposed to appeal to and appease female buyers. To further this image, the Victoria's Secret catalog continued the practice that Raymond began: listing the company's headquarters on catalogs at a fake London address, with the real headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. The stores were redesigned to evoke 19th century England.
By 2006, Victoria's Secret's 1,000 stores across the United States accounted for one third of all purchases in the intimate apparel industry.
FOUNDER
Roy Larson Raymond (April 15, 1947 – August 26, 1993) was an American businessman, who founded the Victoria's Secretlingerie retail store.
Raymond was an alumnus of Tufts University and Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Raymond worked for the Vicks company in their marketing department.
On June 12, 1977, he opened the first Victoria's Secret store at the Stanford Shopping Center after feeling embarrassed trying to purchase lingerie for his wife in an awkward, public department store environment. To open the store, he took a $40,000 bank loan and borrowed $40,000 from relatives. The company earned $500,000 in its first year. He quickly started a mail order catalog and opened three more stores.
In 1982, after five years of operation, Raymond sold the Victoria's Secret company, with its six stores and 42-page catalogue, grossing $6 million per year, to Leslie Wexner, creator of The Limited, for $4 million. By the early 1990s, Victoria's Secret had become the largest American lingerie retailer, topping $1 billion. In FY 2009, Victoria's Secret was worth over USD $5 billion and has over 1000 stores worldwide.
In 1984, Raymond personally invested £650,000 to start My Child's Destiny, a retail store for children, that went bankrupt in 1986.
On August 26, 1993, Raymond committed suicide by leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge at the age of 46.
“She's a leader just by how hard she plays. She has more confidence after taking her off the point. She's doesn't have to come down and set up the play every time. She can get up and run more.”