By clothing-bag, 17/12/2022

Victoria's Secret founded, he ruined and removed his life

About 70 meters.That is the distance that separates the pedestrian route of the Golden Gate from San Francisco, one of the most famous hanging bridges in the world, from the bay water of the same name.A soft temperature day of August 26, 1993, the man who could reign, Roy Raymond (who was born in Connecticut in 1947), launched himself from there and ended his life engulfed in the proclantos waters.Like most 1.500 people who have committed suicide since that bridge, was a desperate man, overwhelmed by debts, only.But, above all, he was a man marked by misfortune.The female underwear that he founded, Victoria's Secret, had become one of the most lucrative textile businesses in his country, United States.There was only one problem: he didn't enter a dollar.His misfortune was to have sold it a few years before.

In this story there is only a loser, Roy Raymond.The others are all winners in a company that today Invoice 7.000 million euros a year.Victoria's Secret is a powerful claim you look at it from any angle.As a fine underwear, as a massive parades organizer with millionaire income thanks to the advertising that reports its transmission, such as trampoline for models and aspiring celebrities, as an image supplier on Instagram or as a claim to click on Internet holders.

But things were very different when the company started, back in 1977.“It all started when Roy went to buy me lingerie and felt uncomfortable.I had a very bad time because of the difficulties he had when finding pretty models and because the treatment was not too warm ”.The one who speaks is the one who was Raymond's wife, Gaye, a lady who now is 65 years old and who lives discreetly as a university professor.

Fundó Victoria's Secret, se arruinó y se quitó la vida

We are in the mid -1970s.In the United States (and let's not say in Spain) most department stores lacked elegant and exclusive female underwear.Refinement, lace and silk would take to arrive.Raymond wanted his wife to feel pretty also inside."He said that some dependents treated him with cynicism and made him feel like a pervert," Gaye told the American press in the few interviews he has granted.

Man with entrepreneurial shaft, Roy decided to create a new concept: instead of the overwhelm of the department stores where many sizes and doubtful taste are exposed, it would be a store where the garments exhibited in a frame on the wall would be shown, to be able to curlyWithout being disturbed.Once the model was chosen, the dependent helped the client (basically male) with the size.It was like a kind of erotic museum.In addition, he offered a catalog by mail.The investment was not very high: 80.000 dollars.Half got them through a bank credit and the other 40.000 requested them to their relatives.

In 1977 he opened the first store in Palo Alto, California.The stir was considerable.In the surroundings there was much talk about a different business, wallpaper of sexy clothes, comfortable sofas and relaxed atmosphere.“It was a small store, with Victorian brothel decoration, with red velvet sofas.But clothes was really pretty.And sexy.I had not seen anything the same in the United States, ”said Newsweek in 2010 Leslie Wexler, an important guy in this story.But first some things had to happen.

In five years Raymond managed to make his small store a good business and even expand it with three more establishments.Things marched for marriage, which acquired some property and a couple of cars.In 1982 the great decision arrived.A booming businessman Leslie Wexler, owner of The Limited, a booming textile business, made an offer to Raymond.Your Victoria's Secret for one million dollars.Roy, whose business personality could be described as restless and alien to taking roots, decided to sell.His goal was to use that money to set up other businesses.

It was when My Child’s Destiny created, a child clothing company, focused on American rich.But he failed.A few years old I was in bankruptcy.While his life chains Fiascos, Roy watched as an dismay of how the company he had created and sold, Victoria's Secret.Its new owner, Leslie Wexter, inspired by European lingerie stores, changed the concept: Victoria's Secret would not be for men to buy lingerie from their partners;The clients were now, attracted to glamor's idea.In a few years he became a world reference with income of 1.000 million dollars and with more than 600 stores worldwide.

Roy's morals sink."I think he took severe depression.He asked his mother a lot of money.He tried more businesses, but they were wrong.And he only saw an exit, ”said his ex -wife.The couple divorced, and only a few weeks later Raymond threw himself on the San Francisco bridge.

They took to find their body for a week.He was 46 years old.

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