Victoria Secret Gift Card

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Victorias Secret is an American retailer of womens wear, lingerie and beauty products. It is the largest segment of publicly-traded Limited Brands with sales of over US$5 billion and an operating income of $1 billion in 2006. Victorias Secret is known for its annual fashion show, the Victorias Secret Fashion Show, and for its catalogs, both of which feature top fashion models. Victorias Secret was started in San Francisco, California, in 1977 by Tufts University and Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus Roy Raymond, who felt embarrassed trying to purchase lingerie for his wife in a department store environment. He opened the first store at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, and quickly followed it with a mail-order catalog and three other stores. The stores were meant to create a comfortable environment for men, with wood-paneled walls, Victorian details and helpful sales staff. Instead of racks of bras and panties in every size, there were single styles, paired together and mounted on the wall in frames. Men could browse for styles for women and sales staff would help estimate the appropriate size, pulling from inventory in the back rooms. In 1982, after 5 years of operations, Roy Raymond sold the Victorias Secret company, with its six stores and 42-page catalogue, grossing $6 million per year, to Leslie Wexner, creator of The Limited, for $4 million. The Limited kept the personalized image of Victorias Secret intact. Victorias Secret was rapidly expanded into the U.S. malls throughout the 1980s. The company was able to vend a widened range of products, such as shoes, evening wear, and perfumes, with its mail catalog issued eight times annually. By the early 1990s, Victorias Secret had become the largest American lingerie retailer, topping one billion dollars.