Express Success

My favorite retailer that I wrote about in my last blog was Express. Express started out as a Limited Brand company, under the name of Limited Express. The first Express store was tested in 1980, in Chicago as a younger, hipper version of The Limited (wikipedia). The success led to having 250 stores across America by 1986, at which point the current CEO, Michael Weiss had joined the brand. By this time, Weiss decided to experiment with men’s clothing, which flourished drastically, and eventually spun off into it’s own store, Structure. By 1989, Weiss was named Merchandiser of the Year by Apparel Merchandising Magazine (wikipedia). Express had hit the billion dollar mark by 1991.
Express was known for its sophisticated work clothing, as well as their leisure weekend wear. By 2001, Structure and Express merged to produce the lucrative dual gender store which we now know as Express. In July of 2007, Express was sold to Golden Gate Capital, thus becoming an independent company (express.com).
Express currently has over 550 stores across America (with one just opening in Hawaii last December), and employs over 20,000 employees. Express’ headquarters are located in Columbus, Ohio and in New York, New York (where the design studio is also located). Today, Express is well known for their Editor pants and jeans. I believe that Express is so successful because of the strong entrepreneurial skills and the vision of CEO Michael Weiss.

picture from express.com