I’ve been plus size all my life. One of the few places that I could shop was Lane Bryant. I remember hating it while being thankful for it; not only was it somewhere I could actually shop but I was always one of the smaller sizes. What a treat! (Insert eye roll emoji.) I have no idea what made me think that Lane Bryant was not an old company. I think I had this idea in my head that stores that sold to plus size exclusively appeared somewhere in the mid 1970s. In my mind it all went hand in hand with the woman’s rights movement. I now realize how wrong I was.

Lane Bryant was actually a woman named Lena Himmelstein born in Lithuania in 1887. She had a difficult childhood and immigrated to New York City in 1895 whee married a man named David Bryant a few years later and had a son. Shortly after the birth of her son her husband died, leaving her to fend for the two of them. She made money doing a number of things but most notably, making negligees. In 1904 her and her son moved to a storefront space with living quarters on 5th Avenue between 119th and 120th Street. What is crazy about that is that I live not a 10 minute walk from there! When she opened the bank account for the store her name was misspelled as “Lane” instead of “Lena” and the new name stuck throughout her life.

A pregnant client of Lane’s asked her to design a garment for her that was both “presentable but comfortable.” Lane made an accordion pleated skirt and an elastic waist band. The garment became successful not only with rich and middle class women but with with poorer women who needed something to work in. It became Lane’s best seller.

She married Albert Malsin in 1909 and he joined the business. The pairing was a harmonious one personally and professionally and Albert introduced many practices that were quite ahead of their time in a time period where ready to wear clothing was nearly non existent.

They ran into issued issues publicizing their product as any mention of a woman being pregnant was strictly forbidden. They did manage to get an ad in the New York Herald in 1911 and their entire stock sold in one day.

A few years later a new demographic that had not been represented in fashion occurred to Lena: the plus sized or “stout” woman. This demographic encompassed around 40% of American women who did not have access to ready to wear clothing. Lena changed that and it was so successful that by 1923 stout clothing overtook maternity clothing and while maternity maintained its profitability it was phased out in the 1960s to concentrate on plus size clothing exclusively.

Not only was Lena a natural business woman in her ideas, but she was a caring and smart woman. She partnered with the Red Cross to guarantee that any customer’s clothes lost in a disaster would be replaced free of charge.

At a time where benefits for employees were unheard of, Lane Bryant offered profit sharing, pension, disability insurance, group life insurance plans, and medical benefits. When the company went public in the 1950s she reserved 25% of the stock for employees.

I honestly knew nothing about Lena Bryant before doing research for this article and she impresses me so immensely. The fact that a woman in the early part of the 20th century in a dire situation was able to see under served groups of women and was able to serve those groups while still making sure to give back to her employees is amazing.