Casual Corner


Casual Corner was an American retail clothing chain founded in 1950. It operated stores under the names Casual Corner, Petite Sophisticate and August Max Woman brands among others. Casual Corner operated more than 525 stores at its peak.

History

Charles E. Carples and Stanley W. Vogel co-founded Casual Corner in 1950 in West Hartford, Connecticut. It was sold to United States Shoe Corporation in 1970 when the chain included 20 stores. A year later, the chain opened its twenty-fifth store and continued to grow rapidly after that. Many of the original stores were constructed by George Zunner III of West Hartford. These included stores in Warwick and Providence RI, Boston and Springfield MA, Buffalo NY, and at least one store in Ohio.
The chain's target demographic was originally sportswear for women, but by the 1990s it had been redesigned to target working women. Under U.S. Shoe's ownership, Casual Corner became the foundation of a larger holding company entitled Women's Specialty Retailing Group, which, in addition to Casual Corner, owned and operated several other brands, including August Max, Sophisticated Woman, Petite Sophisticate, Ups & Downs, J. Riggings, Caren Charles, and Casual Corner Annex. At its peak, US Specialty Retailing included over 1,300 stores nationwide.
In April 1995, Luxottica purchased U.S. Shoe for $1.4 billion with the goal of acquiring its LensCrafters division; in October 1995, Luxottica spun off the Women's Specialty Retailing Group to a company operated by Luxottica founder Leonardo Del Vecchio and his family, with the company renamed Casual Corner Group.
With 525 stores in business at its peak in 2000, Casual Corner closed its remaining locations in late 2005 after selling them to a liquidator. The stores were closed due to increased competition.