Banana Republic: Mel and Patricia Ziegler

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2024

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With $1500 in savings and no experience in retail, Mel and Patricia Ziegler stumbled upon a clever idea: buy inexpensive Army surplus gear, refashion it into stylish clothes, and sell them in a setting that felt more like a safari than a store. With a retro- feel catalog that turned shopping into an adventure, Banana Republic caught the attention of the media, and sales grew. But so did the headaches of running the business, and in 1983, the Zieglers sold the brand to The Gap. Over the years, Banana Republic lost its distinctive, retro-Safari feel, and the Zieglers departed to start another brand, The Republic of Tea. Today, Banana Republic remains a multi-million dollar business, with hundreds of stores around the world.

This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant. Our audio engineer was Kwesi Lee.

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Transcript

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0:51.0	Hello, I'm Hannah and I'm Sorootie.
0:53.0	And we are the hosts of Red-handed a weekly true-crime podcast.
0:57.0	Every week on Red-handed we get stuck into the most talked about cases.
1:00.0	From the Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdoch saga.
1:05.6	Last year we also started a second weekly show shorthand which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like.
1:13.6	We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood,
1:17.8	the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction.
1:23.7	Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior.
1:28.7	Like, can someone give consent to be cannibalized?
1:31.1	What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist.
	...

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