Secret Stores

Limited Brands Victoria’s Secret is just one piece of the corporate pie called Limited Brands, formerly known as The Limited, Inc. In a move to demonstrate its fervent belief in the importance of brands, the company changed its name and fortified its mission to develop each of the brands within its portfolio of companies, which includes Victoria’s Secret, The Limited, Bath and Body Works, Express, Express for Men, Lerner New York/New York & Company, White Barn Candle Company, Aura Science, and Henri Bendel.

Few brands, even Madonna and Aerosmith, provide a better blueprint for brand evolution than Limited Brands. Front man and leader of the Limited Brands band is Leslie Wexner, who opened the first Limited store in 1963 with a $5,000 loan from his aunt. His strategy was based on segmentation-pick a segment of customers, understand those customers, and give them what they want. Don’t try to be everything to everyone; be vital and relevant to a select few.

As Limited’s target market matured, so did its offerings, leaving the need for a second concept to appeal to emerging younger markets.

That brand was Express. By 1993, the company had 13 businesses including Abercrombie & Fitch, Lane Bryant, Structure, Galyans, and Limited Too, all of which were grown and spun off.

With an uncanny ability to buy minuscule chains consisting of only a few stores (like Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch) and build them into billion dollar businesses, Wexner reinvents himself and Limited Brands every decade or so based on changes in his customers’ wants and lifestyles. New additions to Limited Brands’ portfolio include Victoria’s Secret Direct and Victoria’s Secret Beauty, a sister division of Victoria’s Secret stores, which develops and markets fragrances, color cosmetics, skin care products, and personal accessories. It’s a concept that exploded from a corner of Victoria’s Secret stores into separate stores dedicated to beauty products. Two of its fragrances are among the ten best selling fragrances in the United States, earning four prestigious FiFi awards for new fragrances.