Victoria's Secret Angels
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Victoria's Secret Store, 722 Lexington Ave, New York, NY
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| Industry | Apparel |
| Founded | June 12, 1977 Stanford Shopping Center, San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Founder | Roy Raymond |
| Headquarters | Three Limited Parkway, Columbus, Ohio, U.S. |
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Number of locations
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1,017 company-owned stores 18 independently owned stores |
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Area served
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United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Chile, China, Egypt , Israel, Austria, Ireland, Poland, Serbia, Taiwan and Thailand |
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Key people
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Lori Greeley (CEO of Victoria's Secret Stores) Sharen Jester Turney (CEO and President of Victoria's Secret Megabrand and Intimate Apparel) |
| Products | Underwear, women's clothing, lingerie, swimwear, footwear, fragrances and beauty products, and make up. |
| Parent | L Brands |
| Website | VictoriasSecret.com |
Victoria's Secret is an American designer, manufacturer and marketer of women's premium lingerie, womenswear and beauty products. With 2012 sales of $6.12 billion, it is the largest American retailer of women's lingerie. Victoria's Secret is wholly owned by L Brands, a publicly traded company.
Roy Raymond opened the first Victoria's Secret store on June 12, 1977 at the Stanford Shopping Center after feeling embarrassed trying to purchase lingerie for his wife in a public department store. To open the store, he took a $40,000 bank loan and borrowed $40,000 from his parents to found Victoria's Secret: a store in which men could feel comfortable buying lingerie. Raymond picked the name Victoria to associate with the refinement of the Victorian era. The Secret was what was hidden underneath the clothes. The company's first store was located in Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California. The company earned $500,000 in its first year and Raymond promptly started a mail order catalog and opened three more stores.
In 1982, Raymond sold the Victoria's Secret company, with its six stores and 42-page catalogue, grossing $6 million per year, to Leslie Wexner, the founder of The Limited, for about $1 million. By the early 1990s, Victoria's Secret had become the largest American lingerie retailer, topping $1 billion.
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.
By 1980, Raymond had added two more San Francisco stores at 2246 Union Street and 115 Wisconsin Street.
By 1982, the fourth store (still in the San Francisco area) was added at 395 Sutter Street. Victoria's Secret stayed at that 395 Sutter Street location until 1990, when it moved to the larger Powell Street frontage of the Westin St. Francis.
In April 1982, Raymond sent out his 12th catalogue; each catalogue cost $3 (equivalent to $7.45 in 2016). Catalogue sales now accounted for 55% of the company's $7 million annual sales.
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Wikipedia