The rise to prominence of Lane Bryant is a sympathetic American saga. In 1895, a woman named Lena Himmelstein took a boat from Lithuania to New York City and began slaving away in a seamstress factory earning pittance wages. Lena was incredibly talented and hard-working, and she eventually earned a small but impressive rate of $15 every week.

After marrying and having a child, Lena might have retired from the world of design had not her husband passed away. Forced back into the work world, Lena revisited her sewing and developed a bustling operation out of her apartment. Thanks to some errant loan paperwork, her name became changed to Lane Bryant.

During the early 20th century, few women were allowed to discuss problems associated with pregnancy. Acquaintances approached Lane and asked her to create stitched attire to wear through pregnancy. Lane improvised and pioneered the maternity dress, which featured a waistband made of elastic material.

By the early 1910s, the Lane Bryant company was bringing in quite a lot of money, but newspapers still refused to allow her to advertise her maternity clothes. Once she was able to get the New York Herald to allow her to post an ad, her business truly took off. She then moved into the ready-to-wear plus-size women's market and began to create a retail empire. Today, Lane Bryant's plus sized tops, bottoms, suiting, and outerwear bring in almost a billion dollars of revenue per year and feature great items for women sizes 14 to 28.