Nancy Talbot

Nancy Talbot

1920–2009

Nancy Talbot, who has died of Alzheimer’s disease at 89, once described the type of stylish yet affordable women’s wear she offered at the stores that bore her name: “We look for clothes that are timeless because they are lady-like, simple but not contrived, gimmicky, or extreme, smart but not faddy, fashionable but not funky—chic and understated.” The shop that she and her husband founded in 1947 became the basis of an empire of 586 outlets with revenues last year of nearly $1.5 billion.

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Born Nancy Orr, she attended Radcliffe College before joining the Red Cross and marrying Army intelligence officer Rudolf Talbot, said The Boston Globe. “In 1945, his father opened a Johnny Appleseed clothing store in Hingham, Mass., and died soon after.” Talbot and his new wife “took over and within two years were deciding whether to renew the franchise contract.” They decided against it and instead set up their own namesake shop in an antique clapboard house.

As Talbots grew, it began “taking aim at customers moving to the suburbs after World War II,” said The New York Times. Its owners hit on the idea of “sending out 3,000 black-and-white fliers, using names from The New Yorker’s subscription list, to start a mail-order business. In 1952 the flier became a full-fledged catalogue.” Nancy Talbot, who did the buying and “exercised creative control,” routinely visited New York, where she would personally choose the designs and fashions to feature. Her preferred look was “classic rather than current, chiefly intended for the customer whom Women’s Wear Daily once called ‘the country club woman.’” She also had “an enthusiasm for bright colors” that extended to painting the door of her first store red, “a trademark of all Talbots stores today.”

The Talbots sold their company to General Mills in 1973 and Nancy Talbot continued to help lead it, retiring as vice president a decade later. Her husband died in 1987; she is survived by two daughters.