🠈 Claire's 🠊

Claire's

Claire's is a large chain of mall based stores offering piercings and fashion accessories. In 2012, Claires had over 3400 stores. Wikipedia reports that Claire's had stores in 95% of the malls in the nation.

Corporate History

1961: Rowland Schaefer founded Fashion Tress Industries that sold wigs.
1973: Fashion Tress acquired a 25-store jewelry chain named Claire's.
1978: Claire's began offering piercings.
198?: Claire's acquired a Japanese store Topkapi which had 16 stores.
1989. Claire's acquired Bow Bangles which had 71 stores in the UK.
1995: Claire's acquired The Icing which had 85 stores.
1995: Claire's acquired Accessory Place which had 31 stores.
1996: Claire's acquired the Swiss based Bijoux One.
1999: Claire's purchased Cleopatre which was based in Paris and had 42 stores for $11 million cash
1999: Claire's acquired Afterthoughts which it converted to its Icing brand.
2001: Company opened claires.com was launched.
2002: Claire's acquired the US clothing chain Mr. Rags which had 56 stores.
- 2003: A private investment group acquired Mr. Rags
- 2003: Mr. Rags filed bankruptcy with 114 stores.
2005: Claire's held an IPO on NASDAQ.
2007: Apollo Global Management acquired Claire's for $3.1 billion.
2018: Claire's filed bankruptcy and re-emerged with a steep reduction in stores.

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References:

LA Times - Mr. Rags Chapter 11 (Drawn 5/22/2019)
Fortune - Claire's emerges from Bankruptcy (Drawn 5/22/2019)

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