Charming Shoppes Inc., whose 2,200 Fashion Bug, Catherine's and Lane Bryant stores make it the largest specialty retailer of plus-size women's apparel, will start selling on lanebryant.com next month.
Now a marketing site, lanebryant.com will begin with a tailored selection of moderately priced, fashion-oriented jeans and denim items. For plus-size women ages 18 to 54, the site eventually will carry all inventory sold in Lane Bryant stores nationwide.
There are about 700 Lane Bryant stores nationwide, most of them in malls. The brand has an estimated 7 million names in its database. It was bought in August 2001 from The Limited Inc.
Brylane, a previous owner of the Lane Bryant brand and now running lanebryantcatalog.com, will relinquish rights to that name in 2007. Charming Shoppes' challenge is to ensure consumers know that lanebryant.com and lanebryantcatalog.com are unrelated.
