When was chicos fas founded

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Our Story In , we started as a small Sanibel Island gallery filled with artfully stylish pieces. Call Us Find a Boutique. Gift Cards. More Ways to Shop. About Chicos. Stay Connected. All rights reserved. The tight, short look of proved as unappealing as the loud, baggy look of had been.

Sales had begun to slump again at the end of Payner's tenure. Almost as soon as Marvin Gralnick took over the presidency, same-store sales went up. By the end of the year, the chain was seeing double-digit same-store sales growth. Chico's had grown to over stores in 32 states. The company seemed to have found its niche again, and was determined to keep it.

Chico's' core consumer base was the aging baby boomer. These women had come of age in the s and were now in their prime. They had money to spend and appreciated comfort, style, natural fibers, and a certain lack of stodginess. Chico's had been enormously appealing to this class of customer when it first opened, and it pursued the market now almost unopposed. Other successful chain apparel retailers such as The Gap and The Limited were aimed at younger women. Talbots, Inc, a longtime merchandiser of resort wear and other apparel, projected a more conservative image.

Chico's applied innovative tactics to get and keep customers. It lavished attention on shoppers. Chico's sales clerks received many more hours of training than at comparable chains, and they were taught to build personal relationships with customers. One unique thing about Chico's stores was that the dressing rooms lacked mirrors.

The customer then had to emerge from the dressing room to see how she looked. Sales clerks were to make astute judgments about fit and style and also offer accessories or additional pieces of an ensemble.

Another ploy Chico's adopted was nonjudgmental sizing. Chico's clothes came in size 0, 1, 2, or 3. A woman who in another store would be wearing a size 16 might be flattered to fit into a 3 at Chico's.

This Passport Club program was initiated in , temporarily withdrawn, then revived again in the late s. Chico's strove to make its customers feel valued, and apparently many older women felt other stores did not treat them as well. Helene Gralnick, who remained vice-president of design and concept, felt she knew what the Chico's woman appreciated.

She told Women's Wear Daily , in a June 13, interview, that the typical Chico's woman "likes to have a little dessert, and may not be too thrilled with her butt. They washed easily. Some product lines emphasized that they could be jammed in a suitcase and then worn without ironing. Chico's also kept the price of its clothes down. Most of the designing was done in-house, overseen by Helene Gralnick. This gave the company greater control over its merchandise costs.

By , Chico's was one of the brightest lights in retailing. The company opened more stores, carefully picking likely spots. Chico's worked with a consulting firm that compiled a complex database of consumer characteristics to find good locations for new stores. Though the chain saw potential to grow to perhaps stores, it only opened about 30 to 50 stores a year in the late s, aiming for controlled growth rather than blanketing the country.

Chico's began advertising in national magazines for the first time in By , the stores began stocking some different types of items, such as soaps and aromatic oils, candles, watches, and shoes.

New stores moved to a larger format, of about 1, square feet, to accommodate the growing product mix and to make room for a special section to house sale items. This was a nice reward program for frequent shoppers, but it also provided Chico's with a wealth of information about its most dedicated customers. In , the Passport Club had some , members. This grew to , two years later.

The company also put out a catalog and began selling through a Chico's web site. Chico's stock did well as the company continued to roll out impressive sales statistics.

Sales for were over 40 percent higher than figures, and nothing seemed to hold the company back. It still had room for geographic expansion, and its customer base seemed to be growing. An industry analyst quoted in the Wall Street Journal February 22, stated that Chico's' core demographic of women aged 45 to 65 would grow by at least 24 percent a year until