Lillian Vernon Corporation is an American catalog merchant and online retailer 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, apartment; the business name is a combination of her first name and her hometown.
Lillian Vernon was started by Lillian Menasche at the age of twenty-four, by placing advertisements in Seventeen magazine for personalized purses and belts. [1] As a result of this success, the Vernon Specialties Company [2] 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, [3] 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. [4]
The Lillian Vernon Corporation, founded in 1965, went public in 1987. It was the first company founded by a woman to be publicly traded on the American Stock Exchange. [4]
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. [5] In October 2015 Lillian Vernon was purchased by Regent, a Beverly Hills-based private equity firm controlled by investor Michael Reinstein. [6] [7]
Several Hollywood celebrities began their careers as Lillian Vernon models including Jason Biggs, Monica Potter and Marla Maples. [8]
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 .
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".
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. [9] She was also a board member of Citymeals-on-Wheels. [10]
Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail ordering catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores.
Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is an American department store chain that operates 664 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Men's, Women's, Boys', Girls', Baby, Bedding, Home, Fine Jewelry, Shoes, Lingerie, JCPenney Salon, JCPenney Beauty, as well as leased departments such as Seattle's Best Coffee, US Vision optical centers, and Lifetouch portrait studios.
Bed Bath & Beyond, was an American big-box retail chain specializing in housewares, furniture, and specialty items. Headquartered in Union, New Jersey, the chain operated stores in the United States and Canada, and was once counted among the Fortune 500 and the Forbes Global 2000. The chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2023 and liquidated all of its remaining stores, with the last closing on July 30, 2023. Following the retail chain's liquidation, its name was adopted by online retailer Overstock.com, which acquired the company's trademarks in a bankruptcy auction. The name is also still used by the chain's former Mexican division, which is now independent.
J.Crew Group, Inc., is an American multi-brand, multi-channel, specialty retailer. The company offers an assortment of women's, men's, and children's apparel and accessories, including swimwear, outerwear, lounge-wear, bags, sweaters, denim, dresses, suiting, jewelry, and shoes.
Sharper Image is an American brand that offers consumers home electronics, air purifiers, gifts, and other high-tech lifestyle products through its website, catalog, and third-party retailers. The brand is owned by ThreeSixty Group, with the U.S. catalog and website owned and operated by Michigan-based Camelot Venture Group.
Ripplewood is an American private equity firm based in New York City that focuses on leveraged buyouts, late stage venture, growth capital, management buyouts, leveraged recapitalizations and other illiquid investments.
Foot Locker, Inc. is an American sportswear and footwear retailer, with its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and operating in 28 countries.
Bonwit Teller & Co. was an American luxury department store in New York City, New York, founded by Paul Bonwit in 1895 at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street, and later a chain of department stores.
Brookstone is a chain of retail stores in the United States and China. It was founded as a mail-order business in 1965, when it started selling items, such as dental clamps and other specialty tools. Its first physical location opened in 1973 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The company's headquarters are currently located in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
Spiegel was an American direct marketing retailer founded in 1865 by Joseph Spiegel. Spiegel published a catalog, like its competitors Sears and Montgomery Ward, which advertised various brands of apparel, accessories, and footwear, as well as housewares, toys, tools, firearms, and electronics. Their company brands included Newport News, Shape FX, and Old Kraftsman, among others. They also operated brick-and-mortar stores.
Modell's Sporting Goods is a digitally native retailer which specializes in sporting goods and related apparel. Modell's began with operating retail stores between the late 1980s and the late 2010s. In 2020, Modell’s became a brand owned by the private equity firm Retail Ecommerce Ventures.
The Zale Corporation is an American jewelry retailer, incorporated in Delaware in 1993. The principal executive offices are located in Coppell, Texas.
Chess King was a United States men's clothing retailer created by the Melville Corporation. From its founding in 1968, it grew to over 500 locations by the mid-1980s, before an eventual decline, sale, and closure of the chain in 1995.
The Children's Place Inc. is a specialty retailer of children's apparel and accessories headquartered in Secaucus, New Jersey. It also markets apparel under the Children's Place, Place, Baby Place, and Gymboree brand names.
Fred Philip Hochberg is an American businessman and civic leader. After nearly two decades as an executive, including five years as President at the Lillian Vernon Corporation, he then served in various leadership roles at U.S. government agencies, non-profit organizations, and in academia. From 2009 to 2017, he was chairman and president of the Export–Import Bank of the United States, becoming the institution's longest-serving chairman.
Delia's, Inc. is a lifestyle brand of apparel & accessories, primarily targeting girls and young women.
Golfsmith International Holdings Inc. was an American golf specialty retailer based in Austin, Texas. Each store, along with golfsmith.com, housed a wide selection of golf clubs, shoes, apparel, gadgets and gear from all the major brands as well as proprietary offerings. They also offered custom club fitting, lessons and services for golfers.
Lillian Vernon was an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She founded the Lillian Vernon Corporation in 1951 and served as its chairwoman and CEO until July 1989, though she continued to serve as executive chairwoman until 2003, when the company was taken private by Zelnick Media. When it went public in 1987, Lillian Vernon Corporation was the first company traded on the American Stock Exchange founded by a woman. New York University's Lillian Vernon Writers House is named after her and houses the University's prestigious creative writing program.
Kurt Jetta is a consumer researcher who studies data about multinational corporations through his firm, TABS Analytics, which is based in Shelton, Connecticut. The corporations Jetta has analyzed include Amazon, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, Walmart, Apple. In addition, Jetta has also studied the organic food industry, the vitamin industry, and the online grocery industry. Other investigations led by Jetta include sociological research that pertains to the purchasing habits of various ethnic groups. In the area of trade promotion, Jetta has developed an alternative methodology to current industry baseline models. Jetta also analyzes rewards programs. He was a 2017 Republican candidate in Florida’s 21st Congressional District.
Regent, L.P. is a multi-sector private equity firm based in Beverly Hills, California. Many of Regent's investments have been in the software, technology, consumer products, retail and media space. Its founder and chairman is Michael Reinstein.