Shapewear Giant SPANX Opens the Fisrt Regular Chain

Shapewear giant SPANX will launch its first regular chain in this Friday and it plans to begin its global expansion to challenge other lingerie giants.

SPANX’s first regular chain will be opened at TysonsCorner Center, a top-end shopping center located in McLean, Virginia. McLean is a suburb of Washington DC, whose per capita income there is over $80,000.

Products of SPANX were being sold in 11,500 department stores, boutiques and online stores around 40 countries in the world, however, SPANX has never run independent retail store. This Friday, Sara Blakely will go to McLean in person to cut the red ribbons for Spanx’s first retail store. Early in March, the CEO of SPANX Laurie Ann Goldman said to the Forbes that the next step of Spanx was overseas expansion. “Our international business is just beginning.”Goldman said.

Ten years ago, Sara Blakely began to sell her invention, a modern design tight, and her counter was a folding table inside Neiman Marcus.

Now, the status of SPANX in lingerie dustry is equivalent to Kleenex’s status in the paper towel industry: Spanx is representative of shapewear brand and its profit amount in 2011 was nearly $250 million. The shapewear giant enterprise makes 41-year-old Sara Blakely becoming one of the world’s self-made young female billionaires and being on the cover of Forbes Magazine.