Victoria secret
1977: Founding[edit]
Victoria's Secret was founded by Tufts University and Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus Roy Raymond, and his wife Gaye,[8] in San Francisco, California on June 12, 1977.[9]
Eight years prior to founding Victoria's Secret, Raymond had been embarrassed when purchasing lingerie for his wife at a department store. Newsweek reported him looking back on the incident from the vantage of 1981: "When I tried to buy lingerie for my wife," he recalls, "I was faced with racks of terry-cloth robes and ugly floral-print nylon nightgowns, and I always had the feeling the department-store saleswomen thought I was an unwelcome intruder."[10]
During the 1970s and 1980s most women in America purchased "dowdy", "pragmatic" "foundation garments" by Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, and Jockey in packs of three from department stores and saved "fancier items" for "special occasions" like honeymoons.[11] "Lacy thongs and padded push-up bras" were niche products during this period found "alongside feathered boas and provocative pirate costumes at Frederick's of Hollywood" outside of the main stream product offerings available at department stores.[11]
Raymond studied the lingerie market for eight years[12] before borrowing $40,000 from his parents and $40,000 from a bank to establish Victoria's Secret: a store men could feel comfortable buying lingerie.[9][13] The company's first store was located in Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California.[14][15]
1977–1980: The early years[edit]
Victoria's Secret grossed $500,000 in its first year of business,[15] enough to finance the expansion from a headquarters and warehouse to four new store locations [16] and a mail-order operation.[9]
By 1980 Raymond had added two stores at 2246 Union Street and 115 Wisconsin Street.
By 1982 the fourth store (still in the San Francisco area) was added at