Women Wednesday: Lena (Lane) Bryant

Look what I found!

Lena Himmelstein Bryant Malsin (1877 - 1951) Was the founder of Lane Bryant, the famous clothing company that specialized in fashion for larger women. She was born in Lithuania and emigrated to New York City where she worked in a sweat shop and then eventually started her own company. It all began with a maternity dress. Apparently, up until that time, no manufacturer made maternity dresses, so women who were "enciente" - you couldn't say pregnant - had to hire magic fairies to create special outfits for them - which was fine if you name was Vanderbilt but not so great if you were like normal. So she created this maternity dress that sold like hotcakes even though they couldn't say pregnant in their ads. And then they expanded to ladies plus size clothing. I guess up until that time plus size women had to wear sheets. It's amazing what we take for granted and as a plus size woman I often complain about the lack of choice or how the designers don't consider some of the problems plus size women have - like how we don't want to show off our arm wings or jelly bellies - but at least I don't have to resort to putting a sheet over my head. As for the name change from Lena to Lane - it was a misspelled bank error - so she kept it. Personally, I really like the name Lane - so I guess it was serendipitous. I also like that word - serendipity, serendipitous - so I work it into every conversation. "I'm serendipitous today." "Isn't it a lovely serendipitous day?" "Look! A dragon! How serendipitous." "Oh, what a lovely lane - how serendipitous" - notice how I worked lane and serendipitous into the same sentence? There really isn't a lot of information on her that I could find - other than a couple of websites that say the same thing and this lovely picture book.

I did find what I think is her picture. You can't always trust the internet - but this is what I found. You would think a fashion icon like this would have more attention - like Coco Channel. If it weren't for Lena, there would be a lot of pregnant and large ladies walking around naked. And some of us don't want to do that.

Here's a link to some info about her. And no, the Lane Bryant company is not paying me to do this. I wish. Lena Himmelstein Oh, and since The Orchards of Marina Colleen is an outdoor mall, I really should create a woman's clothing store. I have a lot of stores but none for fashion other than Pursnicketies which is for bags. Any suggestions for a name?

***** It was pointed out to me that all the times I've been linking to my FREE BOOK, the link was to the Canadian site. So here we go - a link to the American site. And if it doesn't work, you can always put my name in the search engine of Amazon

- Anna Maria Junus. That should work for all Amazons throughout the world. But you better hurry. Only one more day and then it goes back to being a paid download. Thimble Fingers on Amazon.com