Liz Claiborne
was an entrepreneur and fashion designer more popularly known for being the
co-founder of Liz Claiborne Inc. which became the first
company established by a woman to make it to the prestigious Fortune 500 in
1986. Claiborne was also the first woman CEO and chairman of a Fortune 500
company.
Claiborne was
born in Brussels, Belgium but her parents were Americans. She studied at a
boarding school in Maryland named St. Timothy’s. However, Claiborne did not
finish high school because her father believed she did not need an education.
She just had an informal study on art.
In 1949,
Harper’s Bazaar sponsored the Jacques
Heim National Design Contest. Claiborne was the contest’s winner.
Thereafter, she worked for Garment District in New York as sketch artist for
Tina Leser, a sportswear house.
Frustrated with
the fashion houses she worked for, Claiborne started her own design company,
the Liz Claiborne Inc., in 1976. In two years, her company’s sales grew in
leaps and bounds; that is, from $2 million in 1976 to $23 million in 1978. When
her company made it to the Fortune 500 in 1986, sales were reported at $1.2
billion.
Claiborne
retired in 1989. She died on June 26, 2007 after battling against abdominal
cancer. She was 78 at her death.
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