🠈  L Brands  🠊

L Brands

L Brands is a family of stores created by the Wexner family. The chain was created in 1951 when Bella and Henry Wexner of Columbus, Oh created a women's clothing store name "Leslie's" after their son. In 1963 Leslie Wexner created a store in The Kingsdale Shopping Center which he called The Limited as the store sold a limited line for younger women.

The company began selling shares in 1977 and was listed on the NYSE in 1982. The Limited created Express brand in 1980.

In 1982 The Limited bought Victoria's Secret which was created 1977 by Roy Raymond of San Francisco. Mr. Raymond had spent 8 years studying women's lingerie and wanted to create a store where men felt comfortable buying lingerie. The store is named after Queen Victoria who would not have approved of the brand.

In 1985, The Limited bought the fragrance company Henri Bendel which was established in 1895.

In 1988 The Limited bought the brand name Abercrombie & Fitch from Oshman's Sporting Goods. The Limited developed Ambercrombie & Fitch along the lines of Victoria Secret using highly suggestive advertising to market to young adults. They spun this off in an IPO in 1996.

In 1987, The Limited created the sister brand called Limited Too which they marketed to teens. The chain grew to 288 stores by 1995. During the 1990s, Limited Too began selling preteen clothing and discovered a gold mine.

Advertisemen: You can find Limited Too Clothing on Amazon.com.

Limited Too discovered that girls in their tweens still like shopping with mom. Tweens love clothes and mom has deep pockets. The company created the Justice brand just for tween girls. They rebranded this division to Tween Brands and had an IPO with the symbol TWB. TWB was acquired by Dress Barn in 2009.

In 1990, The Limited created a brand called Bath and Body Works which sells scented soap, body care products and fragrances.

In 2007, The Limited sold its namesake line of stores, The Limited to Sun Capital Partners. Bluestar Alliance acquired Limited Too. The rest of the chain fell into bankruptcy in 2017. Sycamore Partners bought the Intellectual Property. Sycamore is using the brand The Limited as label for an exclusive line sold through Belk.

The company has about 3000 stores. Many are in malls. Web sites owned by L Brands include:

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References:

  1. Reuters - Sun Capital ... closing all stores (Drawn 12/7/2017)

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