One family. One hundred and thirty years of dressing the overlooked.
From a pawned pair of earrings to the company that invented plus-size apparel — and on to the operating house carrying the work forward.
Drag · scroll · →A girl is born in Lithuania
Lena Himmelstein is born in Lithuania, then part of Czarist Russia, and orphaned days later. She is raised amid persecution she will never forget.
Steerage to America
At sixteen, Lena sails to New York in steerage. Refusing an arranged marriage, she takes work in a Lower-East-Side sweatshop for a dollar a week and learns to sew lingerie.
A widow with a sewing machine
She marries jeweler David Bryant; their son Raphael is born. Six months later David dies of tuberculosis. Lena pawns her diamond earrings to make the down payment on a Singer sewing machine.
“Lane Bryant” is born
Opening a bank account, the timid young widow misspells her own name on the deposit slip — “Lane,” not “Lena.” She grows to like it. The brand is named by accident.
The engineer arrives
Lena marries Albert Malsin, a mechanical engineer who brings cost accounting and sizing science to the craft — and the discipline that turns a shop into an institution.
The advertisement that sold out
The New York Herald runs the first maternity advertisement ever printed. The entire stock sells out in a single day — $2,800 — and Lane Bryant's fame begins.
Owned by the people who built it
Incorporated as Lane Bryant, Inc., the company lets its employees subscribe to a quarter of the stock — among the first profit-sharing plans in American retail.
The invention of plus-size
With a flexible yardstick, Malsin measures 4,500 customers and 200,000 records, finding that ~40% of women exceeded the “perfect 36.” Lane Bryant designs for them — and invents modern plus-size apparel.
A category comes of age
Albert Malsin dies. By now, larger-size sales have overtaken maternity, and the business has grown to some $5 million a year across a growing chain of stores.
A national institution
As the chain expands across the country, Lane Bryant establishes its annual Volunteer Awards for distinguished public service — later presented at the White House.
The founder's last day at the office
Lena “Lane Bryant” Malsin dies at seventy-two, still keeping an office in the New York store — a national institution built from a pawned pair of earrings.
A quarter-billion-dollar company
Under Raphael Malsin, the company reaches record sales of $277.5 million — and earns national renown for public service.
The next generation
Michael Kaplan, Lena's great-grandson, founds Fashion to Figure — carrying the family's plus-size legacy into a new century of retail.
Proven again
Fashion to Figure sells a substantial stake to private equity at 4.5× its prior valuation — and is later acquired by New York & Co.
Brykap Holding Group
Michael Kaplan reunites the Lane Bryant founding family with a world-class operating team to acquire, scale, and steward the brands that serve the majority of women — the next chapter of a 130-year story.