Victoria's Secret

Victoria's Secret and its Pink brand's aggressive promotions are pulling demand forward and hurting long-term pricing power, Jefferies says.
Victoria's Secret is an American designer, manufacturer, and marketer of women's lingerie, womenswear, and beauty products. The company was founded in 1977 by Roy and Gaye Raymond[4] as a response to packaged underwear, which Roy Raymond considered to be "ugly, floral-print nylon nightgowns". As of 2019, in the United States, Victoria’s Secret is the largest lingerie retailer .
Victoria's Secret was founded by Roy Raymond, and his wife, Gaye Raymond,[4] in San Francisco, California, on June 12, 1977.[6][7] Eight years prior to founding Victoria's Secret, in the late 1960s, Raymond was 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."[8] Raymond spent the next eight years studying the lingerie market.[9][10]
At the time when Raymond founded Victoria's Secret, 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 mainstream product offerings available at department stores.[11] In 1977, Raymond borrowed $40,000 from his parents and $40,000 from a bank to establish Victoria's Secret: a store in which men could feel comfortable buying lingerie.[7][12] The company's first store was located in Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California.[7]
Raymond picked the name "Victoria" after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom to associate with the refinement of the Victorian era. The "Secret" was what was hidden underneath the clothes. The “angels” comes from his wife being in a sorority, Pi Beta Phi, where their mascot was an angel.[12]
Victoria's Secret grossed $500,000 in its first year of business,[7] enough to finance the expansion from a headquarters and warehouse to four new store locations[13] and a mail-order operation.[7] By 1982, the fourth store (still in the San Francisco area) was added at 395 Sutter Street.[14] Victoria's Secret stayed at that location until 1990, when it moved to the larger Powell Street frontage of the Westin St. Francis.[15]
In April 1982, Raymond sent out his 12th catalog; each catalog cost $3 (equivalent to $7.79 in 2018).[14] Catalog sales accounted for 55% of the company's $7 million annual sales in 1982.[14] The Victoria's Secret stores at this time were "a niche player" in the underwear market. The business was described as "more burlesque than Main Street."