Lane Bryant Inc. is an American women's apparel and intimates specialty retailer focusing on

plus-size clothing Plus-size clothing is clothing proportioned specifically for people above the average clothing size. The application of the term varies from country to country, and according to which industry the person is involved in. According to ''PLUS Model ...

. The company began in 1904 with

maternity ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gesta ...

designs created by Lena Himmelstein, Lena Himmelstein Bryant Malsin. Lane Bryant, Inc., is the largest plus-size retailer in the United States. As of 2022, the chain consists of 448 stores in 46 U.S. states (only

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

and

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

do not have Lane Bryant stores). Lane Bryant, Inc. is not affiliated with Lane Bryant catalog (Brylane, Inc.), which was spun off as a separate business in 1993.

Beginning

Widowed at an early age, and the orphaned daughter of

Lithuanian Jewish Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent area ...

refugees, Lena Bryant supported herself and her young son as a

dressmaker A dressmaker, also known as a seamstress, is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and gown, evening gowns. Dressmakers were historically known as mantua (clothing), mantua-makers, and are also known as a mod ...

. Borrowing $300 from her brother-in-law, Bryant went to the bank to open an account. The bank officer misspelled her name on the application as ''Lane'' instead of ''Lena''. In 1904, she rented a small storefront on

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

with living quarters in the back for $12.50 a month. There she hung her garments from the gas fixtures and opened the doors. Asked by one of her

pregnant Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops (gestation, gestates) inside a woman, woman's uterus (womb). A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occur ...

customers to design something "presentable but comfortable" to wear in public, Bryant created a dress with an elasticized waistband and accordion-pleated

skirt A skirt is the lower part of a dress or a separate outer garment that covers a person from the waist downwards. At its simplest, a skirt can be a draped garment made out of a single piece of fabric (such as pareos). However, most skirts are fi ...

. This would become the first known commercially made

maternity dress Maternity clothing is worn by women as an adaptation to changes in body size during pregnancy. The evolution of maternity clothing began during the Middle Ages, and became fashionable as women became more selective about style and comfort in the t ...

. This dress was welcomed not only by middle-class women, but also by poorer pregnant women who had to work. The maternity dress soon became the best-selling garment in Bryant's shop.

Early company challenges

When Bryant married Albert Malsin in 1909, he took charge of the business. He systematically began to develop and expand it. Albert instituted

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

exactness, and modern

cost accounting Cost accounting is defined as "a systematic set of procedures for recording and reporting measurements of the cost of manufacturing goods and performing services in the aggregate and in detail. It includes methods for recognizing, classifying, al ...

and

pricing Pricing is the process whereby a business sets the price at which it will sell its products and services, and may be part of the business's marketing plan. In setting prices, the business will take into account the price at which it could acqui ...

. Sales had reached $50,000 a year by 1910 (). Albert was determined to steer the operation towards specialization. To produce in quantity and at lower cost he began to have dozens of dresses mechanically cut at once and employed high-speed sewing methods. Lane Bryant began supplying design pattern materials and financing for contractors. Though Bryant came up with an innovative and commercially viable product, she had trouble getting the word out: Tradition dictated that topics like

pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...

were not discussed in the press. Her husband took on this challenge by convincing the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. His ...

'' to accept

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

for their venture in 1911. When the paper did, the shop's entire stock sold out the next day. Bryant saw another need just before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Before then, there were no mass manufacturers of clothing in larger sizes for women. After measuring 4,500 of her own customers, as well as gathering information from about 200,000 other women, it was obvious that a new challenge had to be met. Bryant determined three types of stout women and designed clothing to fit each. Plus-sized clothing quickly eclipsed the maternity line, and by 1923, company sales reached $5 million (equivalent to $ million in ).

Mail order catalog

To bypass exclusion from the newspapers, the Malsins created the first mail order catalog for maternity wear. The

mail order Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing a telephone call * Placing a ...

business was developed for the women preferring privacy about their "condition". By 1917, revenues from the catalog alone exceeded one million dollars (equivalent to $ million in ). By 1919, their "stout catalog" had 52 pages and the "maternity catalog" had 76 pages.

Other company innovations

Lena Bryant was a pioneer in other ways. Her customers were important to her, and customer relations and corporate philanthropy were high on her list. At her suggestion, Lane Bryant, Inc. worked with the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

to replace any Lane Bryant customer's wardrobe destroyed in a disaster. After the 1947 Texas City Disaster in

Texas City, Texas Texas City is a city in Galveston County, Texas, Galveston County in the U.S. state of Texas. Located on the southwest shoreline of Galveston Bay, Texas City is a busy deepwater port on Texas's Gulf Coast, as well as a petroleum-refining and pe ...

, the company outfitted 58 mail order customers whose homes were destroyed in the resulting fire. Another concern was

employee benefit Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any oth ...

s. At a time when few companies offered anything more than

wage A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailing wage'', and ''yearly bonuses,'' and remuner ...

, Lane Bryant offered profit sharing,

pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

, disability insurance, group

life insurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...

plans, and medical benefits. By 1950, more than 3,500 employees participated in these pioneering concepts. Twenty-five percent of the stock issued when the company went public was reserved for employee subscription.

Continued company growth

In 1915, the first branch retail store opened in Chicago. After her death in 1951, Bryant's sons took over the business. The Lane Bryant operations were purchased in May 1982 by

The Limited The Limited was an American clothing retailer that operated retail stores between the early 1960s and the late 2010s. After 2007, it became a brand, originally owned by the private equity firm Sun Capital Partners, now owned by another private equ ...

founder

Leslie Wexner Leslie Herbert Wexner (born September 8, 1937) is an American billionaire businessman, the founder and chairman emeritus of Bath & Body Works, Inc. (formerly Limited Brands). Wexner grew a business empire after starting The Limited, a clothing re ...

. In 1961, Lane Bryant acquired Town & Country, a Pennsylvania-based discount department store. The Town & Country division was eliminated in 1977.

Today

The catalog operations were licensed to Brylane (now

Redcats Redcats was a group of commercial companies managed by Jean-Michel Noir. This group entity specialized in international online fashion and home furnishing distribution. PPR sold the Redcats company to focus on luxury and sports. I think its a gi ...

) in 1993. The retail operations were sold to Charming Shoppes, another owner of plus-size clothing stores, in 1999 for $335 million (equivalent to $ million in ). Charming has since expanded the chain and introduced online and outlet sales. Lane Bryant's "sisters" include

Fashion Bug Charming Shoppes is a specialty and plus size clothing retail holding company based in Bensalem, Pennsylvania; a suburb of Philadelphia. Its subsidiaries include Lane Bryant, Cacique, Fashion Bug, and Catherines Plus. Clothes were sold from ov ...

and Catherines. In order to trade on the well-known Lane Bryant brand, Charming folded all of its store sites into the Lane Bryant domain; ''fashionbug.com'' and ''catherines.com'' both redirect to ''fashionbug.lanebryant.com'' and ''catherines.lanebryant.com'' respectively. Today, Lane Bryant is a large retail chain, present in many shopping centers across the United States. In 2004, Lane Bryant opened a flagship store in New York near Fifth Avenue. Charming Shoppes regained the license for the catalog operations in late October 2007. In June 2012, Ascena Retail Group, parent company of

DressBarn Dressbarn.com (branded as dressbarn) is an online retailer owned by Retail Ecommerce Ventures. Its predecessor is the former chain of women's clothing stores owned by Ascena which operated as Dressbarn from 1962 until 2019. Since 2020, it is owne ...

, purchased Charming Shoppes with a $900 million transaction through a combination of cash on hand and $325 million of borrowings from credit facilities. On July 23, 2020, the parent company of Lane Bryant and Ann Taylor filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns as having “severely disrupted” its financial foundation. Stores with locations to be closed included Ann Taylor, LOFT, Lane Bryant and Lou & Grey stores, including all stores across brands in Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico, as well as all Catherine Stores and a “significant number” of Justice stores. In December of the same year, Ascena Retail Group sold Lane Bryant, Ann Taylor and their related brands to Premium Apparel LLC, an affiliate of

Sycamore Partners Sycamore Partners is a private equity firm based in New York specializing in retail and consumer investments. The firm has approximately $10 billion in aggregate committed capital. History Founding Sycamore Partners was founded in 2011 by Stefa ...

, for $540 million.

Slogans

* What Real Women Wear (1995–2004) * Bold. Modern. You. (2004–2010) * Nobody fits you like Lane Bryant (2010–2012) * #ImNoAngel, #PlusIsEqual, #ThisBody (2014–present)

Advertising

In 2010, Lane Bryant accused

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

and

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

of censoring their 30-second ad spot during commercial breaks for ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the forma ...

'' and ''

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...

''. The ads featured plus-sized model Ashley Graham in their Cacique line of lingerie. Lane Bryant accused the networks of discrimination because they had no problem airing

Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest ret ...

advertisements, with similarly clad models, in the same time slots. In March 2016, Lane Bryant accused

and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

of banning a 30-second lingerie ad featuring the tagline "This Body", which depicted mild nudity and

breastfeeding Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that br ...

Designer collaborations

In 2013, Lane Bryant announced its first designer collaboration with designer

Isabel Toledo Isabel Toledo (born Maria Isabel Izquierdo; April 9, 1960 – August 26, 2019) was a Cuban-American fashion designer based in New York City. She was widely recognized in the fashion industry for her attention to craftsmanship and the "sophisticat ...

and artist Ruben Toledo. For Holiday 2013(December 2013), the duo produced a capsule collection with a logo tee and a tote bag featuring Ruben's sketches. In March 2014, their first full collection for Spring 2014 was launched. On March 20, 2014, a runway presentation was held in New York City, which was simulcast live online. In March 2014, Lane Bryant announced their second designer collaboration with

Sophie Theallet Sophie Theallet (born 1964 in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, France) is a French fashion designer whose clients include First Lady Michelle Obama, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, Oprah Winfrey, and Gabrielle Union, Career At 18, Sophie Theallet moved to P ...

. Theallet produced lingerie and sleepwear for Lane Bryant's lingerie brand Cacique, which was released in Fall 2014 (September 2014).

References

External links

Official website
{{Ascena Retail Group Clothing retailers of the United States Companies based in the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area Mail-order retailers Shops in New York City Clothing companies established in 1904 Retail companies established in 1904 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020 Commercial buildings in Manhattan American companies established in 1904 1904 establishments in New York City 1982 mergers and acquisitions 2012 mergers and acquisitions Ascena Retail Group