Lillian Vernon Corporation is an American

catalog merchant A catalog merchant (catalogue merchant in British and Canadian English) is a form of retailing. The typical merchant sells a wide variety of household and personal products, with many emphasizing jewelry. Unlike a self-serve retail store, most ...

and

online retailer Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the r ...

that sells household, children's and fashion accessory products. Founded in 1951 by Lillian Vernon ( a/k/a Lillian Menasche), out of her

Mount Vernon, New York Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is an inner suburb of New York City, immediately to the north of the Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. As of t ...

, apartment; the business name is a combination of her first name and her hometown.

History

Lillian Vernon was started by Lillian Menasche at the age of twenty-four, by placing advertisements in ''Seventeen'' magazine for personalized purses and belts. As a result of this success, the Vernon Specialties Company became focused on products for young women by advertising in magazines focused on that emergent market. The Lillian Vernon Catalog, which the company launched in 1956, became an iconic shopping resource for American women, much like its competitor, the Sears catalog. Produced monthly, the catalog was typically 120 pages and usually featured 750 items. In response to a catalog and shopping mall boom in the United States in the 1980s, the company produced a number of specialty catalogs in order to broaden its market, including ones targeted for children and homemakers. The Lillian Vernon Corporation, founded in 1965, went public in 1987, and was the first company to be founded by a woman to be publicly traded on the American Stock Exchange. Responding to the increasingly important online market in the early 1990s, the Lillian Vernon Corporation opened a storefront on AOL in 1995 and followed with an online catalog and website. However, by the end of the 1990s, the company began to struggle to meet online needs, especially after the collapse of the Dot-com bubble. After Fred and David Hochberg both declined to take over running their mother's company, Vernon sold it to ZelnickMedia in 2003, but retained the symbolic title of non-executive chairman. The company has since changed hands a number of times including emerging from a bankruptcy process in 2008. In October 2015 Lillian Vernon was purchased by

Regent A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...

, a Beverly Hills-based private equity firm controlled by investor

Michael Reinstein Michael A. Reinstein is an American businessman, lawyer, private equity executive and the founder and chairman of Regent, a global private equity firm. Early life Michael Reinstein was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended Southern Method ...

. Several Hollywood celebrities began their careers as Lillian Vernon models including

Jason Biggs Jason Matthew Biggs (born May 12, 1978) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Jim Levenstein in the '' American Pie'' comedy film series and Larry Bloom in the Netflix original series '' Orange Is the New Black''. He al ...

Monica Potter Monica Gregg Potter (née Brokaw; born June 30, 1971) is an American actress. She is known for her starring roles in the films ''Con Air'' (1997), ''Patch Adams (film), Patch Adams'' (1998), and ''Along Came a Spider (film), Along Came a Spider'' ...

and

Marla Maples Marla Ann Maples (born October 27, 1963) is an American actress, television personality, model, singer and presenter. She was the second wife of Donald Trump. They married in 1993, two months after the birth of their daughter Tiffany, and div ...

Pop culture references

Funny products from the similarly named but imaginary Lillian Verner company are featured in '' The Lillian Verner Game Show'', which was a recurring game show spoof on ''

Mad TV ''Mad TV'' (stylized as ''MADtv'') is an American sketch comedy television series originally inspired by '' Mad'' magazine. In its initial run, it aired on Fox from 1995 to 2009. After a one-off reunion show in 2015 to celebrate the twentiet ...

''. In the musical '' Hedwig and the Angry Inch'', the song "Sugar Daddy" includes a lyric in which Hedwig tells her American military boyfriend that "I want all the luxuries of the modern age, / Every item on every page / Of the Lillian Vernon catalogue".

Awards and honors

Lillian Vernon was a recipient of numerous awards, including the Project Sunshine Award for Philanthropic Leadership and The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. She was also a board member of

Citymeals-on-Wheels Citymeals on Wheels, also called Citymeals, is a Meals on Wheels-type nonprofit organization in New York City that raises private funds to provide prepared meals and social support to homebound elderly residents of New York City. History Gael G ...

References

External links

www.lillianvernon.com
nbsp;— Lillian Vernon site {{authority control Online retailers of the United States Companies based in New York (state) Retail companies established in 1951 1951 establishments in New York (state) American companies established in 1951