Word: laura
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...Laura Ashley goes from a kitchen table to sales of $100 million...
...world in search of old-fashioned romance has closely followed this year's fairy-tale stories about Britain's Prince Charles and the Princess of Wales. Selling British romance has also proved a fine business for Laura Ashley Ltd., which has turned a blend of Victorian ruffles and patterns into a nearly $100 million-a-year women's wear and home-furnishings company. The firm's line of frilly blouses, pastel flowered bedspreads and quilted tea cozies now sells from San Francisco to Singapore and from Milan to Melbourne...
...Laura Ashley stores present buyers with a carefully planned atmosphere of gentility: china cups sprinkled with dainty flowers, velvet or taffeta ball gowns with lace collars, ruffled canopy curtains atop four-poster beds. Half of the sales come from women's clothes, the other half from decorating products. The firm traces its success to the distinctive, neo-Victorian look of all its goods, which creates a setting where Charlotte and Emily Brontë could easily feel at home. Says Peter Revers, president of the firm's American operation: "Laura Ashley sells lifestyles, not products per se-English life...
...business began on a kitchen table in the basement flat of Laura and Bernard Ashley in London's Pimlico district. Starting in 1953, the couple printed designs on fabrics and made some of the material into towels and napkins that were sold in London shops. Their first runaway bestseller was a set of tea towels that was a copy of 19th century designs...
That, and all the couple's later products, bore the touch of Victorian England and became known in fashion circles as the Laura Ashley look. A succession of items, including striped garden smocks with three large pockets in front, and long, flowing dresses, sold well in the U.S. and Britain. In 1961 the Ashleys set up their first factory in an old dance hall in Carno, Wales. Opening an experimental shop in Kensington in 1968 convinced them that they could sell their products better than wholesalers could and, with out middlemen, at lower prices...