Mel Ziegler and Patricia Ziegler are an American business couple. They are the founders of Banana Republic, a clothing and accessory retailer. Alongside William Rosenzweig, they co-founded The Republic of Tea. They eventually sold both companies.
Early careers
Both Zieglers worked at San Francisco Chronicle -- Patricia an illustrator and Mel a reporter.
Apparel career
The Zieglers founded Banana Republic in Mill Valley, California, in 1978. The brand's safari-style clothing was styled by Patricia Ziegler. Mel wrote the catalog. Upon hearing the business's name, a friend told the Zieglers, "Bad choice. You'll be picketed by people from small hot countries."
The brand grew quickly, propelled by the popular 1981 move Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Zieglers abruptly resigned in 1988. By then, the business had 1110 stores and annual stores of a quarter of a billion dollars. Relations soured between the Zieglers and Don Fisher, founder of Gap Inc, when the Zieglers wanted to publish a travel magazine and began to sell travel books in the stores.
In October 2000, the Zieglers launched apparel company ZoZa, influenced by Zen.
Their eldest son, Zio Ziegler, is a large-scale metal sculptor, painter, and street artist. The couple published a 2012 memoir titled Wild Company, The Untold Story of Banana Republic.
Personal
The Zieglers moved to the foothills of Mount Tamalpais above Mill Valley and renovated a 1929 house in a project that cost an estimated $2 million.
References
- Rubin, lvia (October 10, 2000). "A New Republic / Banana Republic founders Patricia and Mel Ziegler are selling athletic-based clothing over the Web". SFGate.
- ^ Hellman, Peter (September 28, 2000). "AT HOME WITH/MEL AND PATRICIA ZIEGLER; About to Hatch Their Third Republic". The New York Times. New York. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Retrieved April 9, 2011.
- ^ "Be present, not tense: Mel Ziegler". reveries magazine. reveries.com. December 2000. Archived from the original on July 15, 2011. Retrieved April 9, 2011.
'I was either going to be a curmudgeon, sitting on the edge of it, shaking my finger at it. Or I was going to go see what it was all about.' Mel Ziegler, who with his wife Patricia invented and sold Banana Republic and Republic of Tea, is explaining the end of a hiatus and the beginning of a new journey called ZoZa
Interview with Mel Ziegler. - Lipton, Josh (December 23, 2014), Zio Ziegler: The artist for tech's elite, CNBC.
Bibliography
- Ziegler, Mel; Rosenzweig, Bill; Ziegler, Patricia (1992). The Republic of Tea : letters to a young zentrepeneur. New York: Currency Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-42056-3. OCLC 645832406. Later re-published as: Ziegler, Mel; Rosenzweig, Bill; Ziegler, Patricia (September 1, 1994) . The republic of tea : the story of the creation of a business, as told through the personal letters of its founders (1st Currency paperback ed.). New York: Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-385-42057-0. OCLC 31302063.
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